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MARCELLA 


MACMILLAN'S 

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LMARCELLA 


BY 


MRS.    HUMPHRY   WARD 

AUTHOR  OF  "  ROBERT  ELSMERE,"  "  THE  HISTORY  OP 
DAVID  GRIEVE,"  ETC. 


MACMILLAN   AND   CO. 

AND     LONDON      • 

1895 

All  rights  reserved 


COPTEIGHT,    1894, 

By  MACMILLAN  AND  CO. 


Two  volume  edition  set  up  and  electrotyped  March,  1894.  Reprinted 
April  twice,  May,  June,  July,  August  three  times,  September,  1894. 

One  volume  popular  edition  set  up  and  electrotyped  March,  1895. 
Reprinted  April,  1895. 


Nortoooli  iPress : 

J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  — Berwick  &  Smith. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


TO    MY    FATHER 

E  Cnscribc  Hjis  iSook 
IN    LOVE    AND    GRATITUDE 


BOOK   I 


' '  If  nature  put  not  forth  her  power 
About  the  opening  of  the  flower, 
Who  is  it  that  could  live  an  hour  ?  " 


MARCELLA 


CHAPTER  I 

"  The  mists  —  and  the  sun  —  and  the  first  streaks  of  yellow  in 
the  beeches  — beautiful !  —  beautiful! " 

And  with  a  long  breath  of  delight  Marcella  Boyce  threw  herself 
on  her  knees  by  the  window  she  had  just  opened,  and,  propping 
her  face  upon  her  hands,  devoiu-ed  the  scene  before  her  with  that 
passionate  intensity  of  pleasure  which  had  been  her  gift  and  her- 
itage through  life. 

She  looked  out  upon  a  broad  and  level  lawn,  smoothed  by  the 
care  of  centuries,  flanked  on  either  side  by  groups  of  old  trees  — 
some  Scotch  firs,  some  beeches,  a  cedar  or  two  —  groups  where 
the  slow  selective  hand  of  time  had  been  at  work  for  generations, 
developing  here  the  delightful  roundness  of  quiet  mass  and  shade, 
and  there  the  bold  caprice  of  bare  fir  trunks  and  ragged  branches, 
standing  black  against  the  sky.  Beyond  the  lawn  stretched  a  green 
descent  indefinitely  long,  cai'rying  the  eye  indeed  almost  to  the 
limit  of  the  view,  and  becoming  from  the  lawn  onwards  a  wide 
irregular  avenue,  bordered  by  beeches  of  a  splendid  maturity,  end- 
ing at  last  in  a  far  distant  gap  where  a  gate  —  and  a  gate  of  some 
importance  —  clearly  should  have  been,  yet  was  not.  The  size  of 
the  trees,  the  wide  uplands  of  the  falling  valley  to  the  left  of  the 
avenue,  now  rich  in  the  tints  of  harvest,  the  autumn  sun  pouring 
steadily  through  the  vanishing  mists,  the  green  breadth  of  the 
vast  lawn,  the  unbroken  peace  of  wood  and  cultivated  ground,  all 
carried  with  them  a  confused  general  impression  of  well-being  and 
of  dignity.  Marcella  drew  it  in  —  this  impression  —  with  avidity. 
Yet  at  the  same  moment  she  noticed  involuntarily  the  gateless  gap 
at  the  end  of  the  avenue,  the  choked  condition  of  the  garden  paths 
on  either  side  of  the  lawn,  and  the  unsightly  tufts  of  grass  spot- 
ting the  broad  gravel  terrace  beneath  her  window. 

"  It  is  a  heavenly  place,  all  said  and  done,"  she  protested  to  her- 
self with  a  little  frown.     "  But  no  doubt  it  would  have  been  better 

3 


4  MARCELLA  book  i 

still  if  Uncle  Robert  had  looked  after  it  and  we  could  afford  to 
keep  the  garden  decent.     Still  —  " 

She  dropped  on  a  stool  beside  the  open  window,  and  as  her  eyes 
steeped  themselves  afresh  in  what  they  saw,  the  frown  disappeared 
again  in  the  former  look  of  glowing  content  —  that  content  of 
youth  which  is  never  merely  passive,  nay,  rather,  contains  an  invar 
riable  element  of  covetous  eagerness. 

It  was  but  three  months  or  so  since  Marcella's  father,  Mr.  Richard 
Boyce,  had  succeeded  to  the  ownership  of  Mellor  Park,  the  old  home 
of  the  Boyces,  and  it  was  little  more  than  six  weeks  since  Marcella 
had  received  her  summons  home  from  the  students'  boarding-house 
in  Kensington,  where  she  had  been  lately  living.  She  had  ardently 
wished  to  assist  in  the  June  "  settling-in,"  having  not  been  able  to 
apply  her  mind  to  the  music  or  painting  she  was  supposed  to  be 
studying,  nor  indeed  to  any  other  subject  whatever,  since  the  news 
of  their  inheritance  had  reached  her.  But  her  mother  in  a  dry 
little  note  had  let  it  be  known  that  she  preferred  to  manage  the 
move  for  herself.  Marcella  had  better  go  on  with  her  studies  as 
long  as  possible. 

Yet  Mai'cella  was  here  at  last.  And  as  she  looked  round  her 
large  bare  room,  with  its  old  dilapidated  furniture,  and  then  out 
again  to  woods  and  lawns,  it  seemed  to  her  that  all  was  now  well, 
and  that  her  childhood  with  its  squalors  and  miseries  was  blotted 
out  —  atoned  for  by  this  last  kind  sudden  stroke  of  fate,  which 
might  have  been  delayed  so  deplorably !  —  since  no  one  could  have 
reasonably  expected  that  an  apparently  sound  man  of  sixty  would 
have  succumbed  in  three  days  to  the  sort  of  common  chill  a  hunter 
and  sportsman  must  have  resisted  successfully  a  score  of  tunes 
before. 

Her  great  desire  now  was  to  put  the  past  —  the  greater  part  of 
it  at  any  rate  —  behind  her  altogether.  Its  shabby  worries  were 
surely  done  with,  poor  as  she  and  her  parents  still  were,  relatively 
to  their  present  position.  At  least  she  was  no  longer  the  self- 
conscious  schoolgirl,  paid  for  at  a  lower  rate  than  her  companions, 
stinted  in  dress,  pocket-money,  and  education,  and  fiercely  resent- 
ful at  every  turn  of  some  real  or  fancied  slur ;  she  was  no  longer 
even  the  half-Bohemian  student  of  these  past  two  years,  enjoying 
herself  in  London  so  far  as  the  iron  necessity  of  keeping  her  board- 
ing-house expenses  down  to  the  lowest  possible  figure  would  allow. 
She  was  something  altogether  different.  She  was  Marcella  Boyce, 
a  "  finished  "  and  grown-up  young  woman  of  twenty-one,  the  only 
daughter  and  child  of  Mr.  Boyce  of  Mellor  Park,  inheritress  of 
one  of  the  most  ancient  names  in  Midland  England,  and  just 
entering  on  a  life  which  to  her  own  fancy  and  will,  at  any  rate, 
promised  the  highest  possible  degree  of  interest  and  novelty. 


CH\r.    I  MARCELLA  6 

Yet,  in  the  very  act  of  putting  her  past  away  from  her,  she  only 
succeeded,  so  it  seemed,  in  inviting  it  to  repossess  her. 

For  against  her  will,  she  fell  straightway  —  in  this  quiet  of  the 
autumn  morning  —  into  a  riot  of  memory,  setting  her  past  self 
against  her  present  more  consciously  than  she  had  done  yet,  recall- 
ing scene  after  scene  and  stage  after  stage  with  feelings  of  sar- 
casm, or  amusement,  or  disgust,  which  showed  themselves  freely 
as  they  came  and  went,  in  the  fine  plastic  face  turned  to  the 
September  woods. 

She  had  been  at  school  since  she  was  nine  years  old  —  there  was 
the  dominant  fact  in  these  motley  uncomfortable  years  behind  her, 
which,  in  her  young  ignorance  of  the  irrevocableness  of  living,  she 
wished  so  impatiently  to  forget.  As  to  the  time  before  her  school 
life,  she  had  a  dim  memory  of  seemly  and  pleasant  things,  of  a 
house  in  London,  of  a  large  and  bright  nursery,  of  a  smiling  mother 
who  took  constant  notice  of  her,  of  games,  little  friends,  and  birth- 
day parties.  What  had  led  to  the  complete  disappearance  of  this 
earliest  "  set,"  to  use  a  theatrical  phrase,  from  the  scenery  of  her 
childhood,  Marcella  did  not  yet  adequately  know%  though  she  had 
some  theories  and  many  suspicions  in  the  background  of  her 
mind.  But  at  any  rate  this  first  image  of  memory  was  succeeded 
by  another  precise  as  the  first  was  vague  —  the  image  of  a  tall 
white  house,  set  against  a  white  chalk  cliif  rising  in  terraces 
behind  it  and  alongside  it,  where  she  had  spent  the  years  from 
nine  to  fourteen,  and  where,  if  she  were  set  down  blindfold,  now, 
at  twenty-one,  she  could  have  found  her  way  to  every  room  and 
door  and  cupboard  and  stair  with  a  perfect  and  fascinated 
familiarity. 

When  she  entered  that  house  she  was  a  lanky,  black-eyed  creat- 
ure, tall  for  her  age,  and  endowed  or,  as  she  herself  would  have 
put  it,  cursed  with  an  abundance  of  cuiiy  unmanageable  hair, 
whereof  the  brushing  and  tending  soon  became  to  a  nervous  clumsy 
child,  not  long  parted  from  her  nurse,  one  of  the  worst  plagues  of 
her  existence.  During  her  home  life  she  had  been  an  average 
child  of  the  quick  and  clever  type,  with  average  faults.  But  some- 
thing in  the  bare,  ugly  rooms,  the  discipline,  the  teaching,  the 
companionship  of  Miss  Frederick's  Cliff  House  School  for  Young 
Ladies,  transformed  little  Marcella  Boyce,  for  the  time  being,  into 
a  demon.  She  hated  her  lessons,  though,  when  she  chose,  she 
could  do  them  in  a  hundredth  part  of  the  time  taken  by  her  com- 
panions ;  she  hated  getting  up  in  the  wintry  dark,  and  her  cold 
ablutions  with  some  dozen  others  in  the  comfortless  lavatory;  she 
hated  the  meals  in  the  long  schoolroom,  where,  because  twice 
meat  was  forbidden  and  twice  pudding  allowed,  she  invariably 
hungered  fiercely  for  more  mutton  and  scorned  her  second  course, 


6  MARCELLA  book  i 

making  a  sort  of  dramatic  story  to  herself  out  of  Miss  Frederick's 
tyranny  and  her  own  thwarted  appetite  as  she  sat  black-browed 
and  brooding  in  her  place.  She  was  not  a  favourite  with  her 
companions,  and  she  was  a  perpetual  difficulty  and  trouble  to  her 
perfectly  well-intentioned  schoolmistress.  The  whole  of  her  first 
year  was  one  continual  series  of  sulks,  quarrels,  and  revolts. 

Perhaps  her  blackest  days  were  the  days  she  spent  occasionally 
in  bed,  when  Miss  Frederick,  at  her  wit's  end,  would  take  advan- 
tage of  one  of  the  child's  perpetual  colds  to  try  the  effects  of  a 
day's  seclusion  and  solitary  confinement,  administered  in  such  a 
form  that  it  could  do  her  charge  no  harm,  and  might,  she  hoped, 
do  her  good.  "  For  I  do  believe  a  great  part  of  it's  liver  or 
nerves !  No  child  in  her  right  senses  could  behave  so,"  she  would 
declare  to  the  mild  and  stout  French  lady  who  had  been  her  pai-t- 
ner  for  years,  and  who  was  more  inclined  to  befriend  and  excuse 
Marcella  than  any  one  else  in  the  house  —  no  one  exactly  knew 
why. 

Now  the  rule  of  the  house  when  any  girl  was  ordered  to  bed 
with  a  cold  was,  in  the  first  place,  that  she  should  not  put  her 
arms  outside  the  bedclothes  —  for  if  you  were  allowed  to  read  and 
amuse  yourself  in  bed  you  might  as  well  be  up ;  that  the  house- 
maid should  visit  the  patient  in  the  early  morning  with  a  cup  of 
senna-tea,  and  at  long  and  regular  intei'vals  throughout  the  day 
with  beef-tea  and  gruel ;  and  that  no  one  should  come  to  see  and 
talk  with  her,  unless,  indeed,  it  were  the  doctor,  quiet  being  in  all 
cases  of  sickness  the  first  condition  of  recovery,  and  the  natural 
schoolgirl  in  Miss  Frederick's  persuasion  being  more  or  less  in- 
clined to  complain  without  cause  if  illness  were  made  agreeable. 

For  some  fourteen  hours,  therefore,  on  these  days  of  durance 
Marcella  was  left  almost  wholly  alone,  nothing  but  a  wild  mass  of 
black  hair  and  a  pair  of  roving,  defiant  eyes  in  a  pale  face  show- 
ing above  the  bedclothes  whenever  the  housemaid  chose  to  visit 
her  —  a  pitiable  morsel,  in  truth,  of  rather  forlorn  humanity.  For 
though  she  had  her  moments  of  fierce  revolt,  when  she  was 
within  an  ace  of  throwing  the  senna-tea  in  Martha's  face,  and 
rushing  downstairs  in  her  nightgown  to  denounce  Miss  Frederick 
in  the  midst  of  an  astonished  schoolroom,  something  generally 
interposed ;  not  conscience,  it  is  to  be  feared,  or  any  wish  "  to  be 
good,"  but  only  an  aching,  inmost  sense  of  childish  loneliness  and 
helplessness;  a  perception  that  she  had  indeed  tried  everybody's 
patience  to  the  limit,  and  that  these  days  in  bed  represented  crises 
which  must  be  borne  with  even  by  such  a  rebel  as  Marcie  Boyce. 

So  she  submitted,  and  presently  learnt,  under  dire  stress  of 
boredom,  to  amuse  herself  a  good  deal  by  developing  a  natural 
capacity  for  dreaming  awake.     Hour  by  hour  she  followed  out  an 


CHAP.  I  MARCELLA  7 

endless  story  of  which  she  was  always  the  heroine.  Before  tlie 
annoyance  of  her  afternoon  gruel,  which  she  loathed,  was  well  for- 
gotten, she  was  in  full  fairy-land  again,  figuring  generally  as  the 
trusted  friend  and  companion  of  the  Princess  of  Wales  —  of  that 
beautiful  Alexandra,  the  top  and  model  of  English  society,  whose 
portrait  in  the  window  of  the  little  stationer's  shop  at  Marswell  — 
the  small  country  town  near  Cliff  House  —  had  attracted  the 
child's  attention  once,  on  a  dreary  walk,  and  had  ever  since  gov- 
erned her  dreams.  Marcella  had  no  fairy-tales,  but  she  spun  a 
whole  cycle  for  herseK  around  the  lovely  Princess  who  came  to 
seem  to  her  before  long  her  own  particular  property.  She  had 
only  to  shut  her  eyes  and  she  had  caught  her  idol's  attention  — 
either  by  some  look  or  act  of  passionate  j^et  unobtrusive  homage 
as  she  passed  the  royal  carriage  in  the  street  —  or  by  throwing 
herself  in  front  of  the  divinity's  runaway  horses  —  or  by  a  series 
of  social  steps  easily  devised  by  an  imaginative  child,  well  aware, 
in  spite  of  appearances,  that  she  was  of  an  old  family  and  had 
aristocratic  relations.  Then,  when  the  Princess  had  held  out  a 
gracious  hand  and  smiled,  all  was  delight !  Marcella  grew  up  on 
the  instant :  she  was  beautiful,  of  course  ;  she  had,  so  people  said, 
the  "  Boyce  eyes  and  hair  ;  "  she  had  sweeping  gowns,  generally  of 
white  muslin  with  cherry-coloured  ribbons;  she  went  here  and 
there  with  the  Princess,  laughing  and  talking  quite  calmly  with 
the  greatest  people  in  the  land,  her  romantic  friendship  with  the 
adored  of  England  making  her  all  the  time  the  observed  of  all 
observers,  bringing  her  a  thousand  delicate  flatteries  and  attentions. 

Then,  when  she  was  at  the  very  top  of  ecstasy,  floating  in  the 
softest  summer  sea  of  fancy,  some  little  noise  would  stai'tle  her 
into  opening  her  eyes,  and  there  beside  her  in  the  deepening  dusk 
would  be  the  bare  white  beds  of  her  two  dormitory  companions, 
the  ugly  wall-paper  opposite,  and  the  uncovered  boards  with  their 
frugal  strips  of  carpet  stretching  away  on  either  hand.  The  tea- 
bell  would  ring  perhaps  in  the  depths  far  below,  and  the  sound 
would  complete  the  transformation  of  the  Princess's  maid-of-hon- 
our  into  Marcie  Boyce,  the  plain  naughty  child,  whom  nobody 
cared  about,  whose  mother  never  wrote  to  her,  who  in  contrast  to 
every  other  girl  in  the  school  had  not  a  single  "  party  frock,"  and 
who  would  have  to  choose  next  morning  between  another  dumb 
day  of  senna-tea  and  gruel,  supposing  she  chose  to  plead  tliat  her 
cold  was  still  obstinate,  or  getting  up  at  lialf-past  six  to  repeat 
half  a  page  of  luce's  "  Outlines  of  English  History  "  in  the  chilly 
schoolroom,  at  seven. 

Looking  back  now  as  from  another  world  on  that  unkempt  frac- 
tious Marcie  of  Cliff  House,  the  Marcella  of  the  present  saw  with 
a  mixture  of  amusement  and  self-pity  that  one  great  aggravation 


8  MAECELLA  book  i 

of  that  child's  daily  miseries  had  been  a  certain  injured,  irritable 
sense  of  social  difference  between  herself  and  her  companions. 
Some  proportion  of  the  girls  at  Cliff  House  were  drawn  from  the 
tradesman  class  of  two  or  three  neighbouring  towns.  Their 
tradesmen  papas  were  sometimes  ready  to  deal  on  favourable 
terms  with  Miss  Frederick  for  the  supply  of  her  establishment ; 
in  which  case  the  young  ladies  concerned  evidently  felt  themselves 
very  much  at  home,  and  occasionally  gave  themselves  airs  which 
altei-nately  mystified  and  enraged  a  little  spitfire  outsider  like 
Marcella  Boyce.  Even  at  ten  years  old  she  perfectly  understood 
that  she  was  one  of  the  Boyces  of  Brookshire,  and  that  her  great- 
uncle  had  been  a  famous  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
The  ijortrait  of  this  great-uncle  had  hung  in  the  dining-room  of 
that  pretty  London  house  which  now  seemed  so  far  away ;  her 
father  had  again  and  again  pointed  it  out  to  the  child,  and  taught 
her  to  be  proud  of  it ;  and  more  than  once  her  childish  eye  had 
been  caught  by  the  likeness  between  it  and  an  old  gi-ey-haired 
gentleman  who  occasionally  came  to  see  them,  and  whom  she 
called  "  Grandpapa."  Through  one  influence  and  another  she  had 
drawn  the  glory  of  it,  and  the  dignity  of  her  race  generally,  into 
her  childish  blood.  There  they  were  now  —  the  glory  and  the 
dignity  —  a  feverish  leaven,  driving  her  perpetually  into  the  most 
crude  and  ridiculous  outbreaks,  which  could  lead  to  nothing  but 
humiliation. 

"  I  wish  my  great-uncle  were  here  !     He'd  make  you  remember 

—  you  great  —  you  great  —  big  bully  you !  "  —  she  shrieked  on  one 
occasion  when  she  had  been  defying  a  big  girl  in  authority,  and 
the  big  girl — the  stout  and  comely  daughter  of  a  local  ironmonger 

—  had  been  successfully  asserting  herself. 

The  big  girl  opened  her  eyes  wide  and  laughed. 

^^Your  great-uncle!  Upon  my  word!  And  who  may  he  be, 
miss  ?  If  it  comes  to  that,  I'd  like  to  show  my  great-uncle  David 
how  you've  scratched  my  wrist.  He'd  give  it  you.  He's  almost 
as  strong  as  father,  though  he  is  so  old.  You  get  along  with  you, 
and  behave  yourself,  and  don't  talk  stuff'  to  me." 

Whereupon  Marcella,  choking  with  rage  and  tears,  found  herself 
pushed  out  of  the  schoolroom  and  the  door  shut  upon  her.  She 
rushed  up  to  the  top  terrace,  which  was  the  school  playground, 
and  sat  there  in  a  hidden  niche  of  the  wall,  shaking  and  crying, — 
now  planning  vengeance  on  her  conqueror,  and  now  hot  all  over 
with  the  recollection  of  her  own  ill-bred  and  impotent  folly. 

No  —  during  those  first  two  years  the  only  pleasures,  so  memory 
declared,  were  three:  the  visits  of  the  cake-woman  on  Saturday  — 
Marcella  sitting  in  her  window  could  still  taste  the  three-cornered 
puffs  and  small  sweet  pears  on  which,  as  much  from  a  fierce  sense 


CHAP.   I  MARCELLA  9 

of  freedom  and  self-assertion  as  anything  else,  she  had  lavished 
lier  tiny  weekly  allowance  ;  the  mad  games  of  "  tig,"  which  she  led 
and  organised  in  the  top  playgronnd ;  and  the  kindnesses  of  fat 
Mademoiselle  Renier,  Miss  Frederick's  partner,  who  saw  a  likeness 
in  Marcella  to  a  long-dead  small  sister  of  her  own,  and  surrepti- 
tiously indulged  "  the  little  wild-cat,"  as  the  school  generally 
dubbed  the  Speaker's  great-niece,  whenever  she  could. 

But  with  the  third  year  fresh  elements  and  interests  had  entered 
in.  Romance  awoke,  and  with  it  certain  sentimental  affections. 
In  the  first  place,  a  taste  for  reading  had  rooted  itself  —  reading 
of  the  adventurous  and  poetical  kind.  There  were  two  or  three 
books  which  Marcella  had  absorbed  in  a  way  it  now  made  her 
envious  to  remember.  For  at  twenty-one  people  who  take  interest 
in  many  things,  and  are  in  a  hurry  to  have  opinions,  must  skim 
and  "  turn  over  "  books  rather  than  read  them,  must  use  indeed  as 
best  they  may  a  scattered  and  distracted  mind,  and  suffer  occa- 
sional pangs  of  conscience  as  pretenders.  But  at  thirteen — what 
concentration !  what  devotion !  what  joy !  One  of  these  pre- 
cious volumes  was  Bulwer's  "  Rienzi " ;  another  was  Miss  Porter's 
"  Scottish  Chiefs  "  ;  a  third  was  a  little  red  volume  of  "Marmion  " 
which  an  aunt  had  given  her.  She  probably  never  read  any  of 
them  through  —  she  had  not  a  particle  of  industry  or  method  in 
her  composition  —  but  she  lived  in  them.  The  parts  which  it 
bored  her  to  read  she  easily  invented  for  herself,  but  the  scenes 
and  passages  which  thrilled  her  she  knew  by  heart ;  she  had  no 
gift  for  verse-making,  but  she  laboriously  wrote  a  long  poem  on 
the  death  of  Rienzi,  and  she  tried  again  and  again  with  a  not 
inapt  hand  to  illustrate  for  herself  in  pen  and  ink  the  execution  of 
Wallace. 

But  all  these  loves  for  things  and  ideas  were  soon  as  nothing  in 
comparison  with  a  friendship,  and  an  adoration. 

To  take  the  adoration  first.  When  Marcella  came  to  Cliff  House 
she  was  recommended  by  the  same  relation  who  gave  her  "  Mar- 
mion "  to  the  kind  offices  of  the  clergyman  of  the  pai'ish,  who 
happened  to  be  known  to  some  of  the  Boyce  family.  He  and  his 
wife  —  they  had  no  children  —  did  their  duty  amply  by  the  odd 
undisciplined  child.  They  asked  her  to  tea  once  or  twice ;  they 
invited  her  to  the  school-treat,  where  she  was  only  self-conscious 
and  miserably  shy ;  and  Mr.  EUerton  had  at  least  one  friendly  and 
pastoral  talk  with  Miss  Frederick  as  to  the  difficulties  of  her 
pupil's  character.  For  a  long  time  little  eame  of  it.  Marcella 
was  hard  to  tame,  and  when  she  went  to  tea  at  the  Rectory  Mrs. 
Ellerton,  who  was  refined  and  sensible,  did  not  know  what  to 
make  of  her,  though  in  some  unaccountable  way  she  was  drawn  to 
and  interested  by  the  child.     But  with  the  expansion  of  her  thir- 


]0  MARCELLA  book  i 

teenth  year  there  suddenly  developed  in  Marcie's  stormy  breast  an 
overmastering  absorbing  passion  for  these  two  persons.  She  did 
not  show  it  to  them  mnch,  but  for  herself  it  raised  her  to  another 
plane  of  existence,  gave  her  new  objects  and  new  standards.  She 
who  had  hated  going  to  church  now  counted  time  entirely  by 
Sundays.  To  see  the  pulpit  occupied  by  any  other  form  and  face 
than  those  of  the  rector  was  a  calamity  hard  to  be  borne ;  if  the 
exit  of  the  school  party  were  delayed  by  any  accident  so  that 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  EUerton  overtook  them  in  the  churchyard,  Marcella 
would  walk  home  on  air,  quivering  with  a  passionate  delight,  and 
in  the  dreary  afternoon  of  the  school  Sunday  she  would  spend  her 
time  happily  in  trying  to  write  down  the  heads  of  Mr.  EUerton's 
sermon.  In  the  natural  course  of  things  she  would,  at  this  time, 
have  taken  no  interest  in  such  things  at  all,  but  whatever  had  been 
spoken  by  him  had  grace,  thrill,  meaning. 

Nor  was  the  week  quite  barren  of  similar  delights.  She  was 
generally  sent  to  practise  on  an  old  square  piano  in  one  of  the  top 
rooms.  The  window  in  front  of  her  overlooked  the  long  white 
drive  and  the  distant  high  road  into  which  it  ran.  Three  times 
a  week  on  an  average  Mrs.  EUerton's  pony  carriage  might  be 
expected  to  pass  along  that  road.  Every  day  Marcella  watched 
for  it,  alive  with  expectation,  her  fingers  strumming  as  they 
pleased.  Then  with  the  first  gleam  of  the  white  pony  in  the  dis- 
tance, over  would  go  the  music  stool,  and  the  child  leapt  to  the 
window,  remaining  fixed  there,  breathing  quick  and  eagerly  till 
the  trees  on  the  left  had  hidden  from  her  the  graceful  erect  figure 
of  Mrs.  Ellerton.  Then  her  moment  of  Paradise  was  over;  but 
the  afterglow  of  it  lasted  for  the  day. 

So  much  for  romance,  for  feelings  as  much  like  love  as  child- 
hood can  know  them,  full  of  kindling  charm  and  mystery.  Her 
friendship  had  been  of  course  different,  but  it  also  left  deep 
mai-k.  A  tall,  consumptive  gii'l  among  the  Cliff  House  pupils, 
the  motherless  daughter  of  a  clergyman-friend  of  Miss  Frederick's, 
had  for  some  time  taken  notice  of  Marcella,  and  at  length  won 
her  by' nothing  else,  in  the  first  instance,  than  a  remarkable  gift 
for  story-telling.  She  was  a  parlour-boarder,  had  a  room  to  her- 
self, and  a  fire  in  it  when  the  weather  was  cold.  She  was  not  held 
strictly  to  lesson  hours ;  many  delicacies  in  the  way  of  food  were 
provided  for  her,  and  Miss  Frederick  watched  over  her  with  a 
quite  maternal  solicitude.  When  winter  came  she  developed  a 
troublesome  cough,  and  the  doctor  recommended  that  a  little  suite 
of  rooms  looking  south  and  leading  out  on  the  middle  terrace  of 
the  garden  should  be  given  up  to  her.  There  was  a  bedroom,  an 
intermediate  dressing-room,  and  then  a  little  sitting-room  built 
out  upon  the  terrace,  with  a  window-door  opening  upon  it. 


CHAP.  I  MARCELLA  11 

Here  Mary  Lant  spent  week  after  week.  Whenever  lesson 
hours  wei'e  done  she  clamoured  for  Marcie  Boyce,  and  Marcella 
was  always  eager  to  go  to  her.  She  would  fly  up  stairs  and  pas- 
sages, knock  at  the  bedroom  door,  run  down  the  stejjs  to  the  queer 
little  dressing-room  where  the  roof  nearly  came  on  your  head,  and 
down  more  steps  again  to  the  sitting-room.  Then  when  the  door 
was  shut,  and  she  was  crooning  over  the  fire  with  her  friend,  she 
was  entirely  happy.  The  tiny  room  was  bi;ilt  on  the  edge  of  the 
terrace,  the  ground  fell  rapidly  below  it,  and  the  west  window 
commanded  a  broad  expanse  of  tame  arable  country,  of  square 
fields  and  hedges,  and  scattered  wood.  Marcella,  looking  back 
upon  that  room,  seemed  always  to  see  it  flooded  with  the  rays  of 
wintry  sunset,  a  kettle  boiling  on  the  fire,  her  pale  friend  in  a 
shawl  crouching  over  the  warmth,  and  the  branches  of  a  snow- 
berry  tree,  driven  by  the  wind,  beating  against  the  terrace  door. 

But  what  a  story-teller  was  Mary  Lant !  She  was  the  inventor 
of  a  story  called  "John  and  Julia,"  which  went  on  for  weeks  and 
months  without  ever  producing  the  smallest  satiety  in  Marcella. 
Unlike  her  books  of  adventure,  this  was  a  domestic  drama  of  the 
purest  sort ;  it  was  extremely  moral  and  evangelical,  designed 
indeed  by  its  sensitively  religious  author  for  Marcie's  correction 
and  improvement.  There  was  in  it  a  sublime  hero,  who  set  every- 
body's faults  to  rights  and  lectured  the  heroine.  In  real  life  Mar- 
cella would  probably  before  long  have  been  found  trjdng  to  kick 
his  shins  —  a  mode  of  warfare  of  which  in  her  demon  moods  she 
was  past  mistress.  But  as  Mary  Lant  described  him,  she  not  only 
bore  with  and  trembled  before  him  —  she  adored  him.  The  taste 
for  him  and  his  like,  as  well  as  for  the  story-teller  herseK  —  a  girl 
of  a  tremulous,  melancholy  fibre,  sweet-natured,  possessed  by  a 
Calvinist  faith,  and  akeady  prescient  of  death  —  grew  upon  her. 
Soon  her  absorbing  desire  was  to  be  altogether  shut  up  with  Mary, 
except  on  Sundays  and  at  practising  times.  For  this  purpose  she 
gave  herself  the  worst  cold  she  could  achieve,  and  cherished  dili- 
gently what  she  proudly  considered  to  be  a  racking  cough.  But 
Miss  Frederick  was  deaf  to  the  latter,  and  only  threatened  the 
usual  upstairs  seclusion  and  senna-tea  for  the  former,  whereupon 
Marcella  in  alarm  declared  that  her  cold  was  much  better  and 
gave  up  the  cough  in  despair.  It  was  her  first  sorrow  and  cost  her 
some  days  of  pale  bi-ooding  and  silence,  and  some  nights  of  stifled 
tears,  when  during  an  Easter  holiday  a  letter  from  Miss  Frederick 
to  her  mother  announced  the  sudden  death  of  Mary  Lant. 


12  MARCELLA 


CHAPTER   II 

Friendship  and  love  are  humanising  things,  and  by  her  four- 
teenth year  Marcella  was  no  longer  a  clever  little  imp,  but  a  fast- 
maturing  and  in  some  ways  remarkable  girl,  with  much  of  the 
woman  in  her  already.  She  had  begun  even  to  feel  an  interest  in 
her  dress,  to  speculate  occasionally  on  her  appearance.  At  the 
fourth  breaking-up  party  after  her  arrival  at  Cliff  House,  Marcella, 
who  had  usually  figured  on  these  occasions  in  a  linsey-woolsey 
high  to  the  throat,  amid  the  frilled  and  sashed  splendours  of  her 
companions,  found  lying  on  her  bed,  when  she  went  up  with  the 
others  to  dress,  a  plain  white  muslin  dress  with  blue  ribbons.  It 
was  the  gift  of  old  Mademoiselle  Renier,  who  affectionately  wished 
her  queei',  neglected  favourite  to  look  well.  MarceUa  examined  it 
and  fingered  it  with  an  excited  mixture  of  feelings.  First  of  all 
there  was  the  sore  and  swelling  bitterness  that  she  should  owe 
such  things  to  the  kindness  of  the  French  governess,  whereas 
finery  for  the  occasion  had  been  freely  sent  to  all  the  other  gii-ls 
from  "  home."  She  very  nearly  turned  her  back  upon  the  bed  and 
its  pretty  burden.  But  then  the  mere  snowy  whiteness  of  the 
muslin  and  freshness  of  the  ribbons,  and  the  burning  curiosity  to 
see  herself  decked  therein,  overcame  a  nature  which,  in  the  midst 
of  its  penury,  had  been  always  really  possessed  by  a  more  than 
common  hunger  for  sensuous  beauty  and  seemliness.  Marcella 
wore  it,  was  stormily  happy  in  it,  and  kissed  Mademoiselle  Renier 
for  it  at  night  with  an  effusion,  nay,  some  tears,  which  no  one  at 
Cliff  House  had  ever  witnessed  in  her  before  except  with  the 
accompaniments  of  rage  and  fury. 

A  little  later  her  father  came  to  see  her,  the  first  and  only  visit 
he  paid  to  her  at  school.  Marcella,  to  whom  he  was  by  now  almost 
a  stranger,  received  him  demurely,  making  no  confidences,  and 
took  him  over  the  house  and  gardens.  When  he  was  about  to 
leave  her  a  sudden  upswell  of  paternal  sentiment  made  him  ask 
her  if  she  was  happy  and  if  she  wanted  anything. 

"  Yes  !  "  said  Marcella,  her  large  eyes  gleaming ;  "  tell  mamma 
I  want  a  '  fringe.'     Every  other  girl  in  the  school  has  got  one." 

And  she  pointed  disdainfully  to  her  plainly  parted  hair.  Her 
father,  astonished  by  her  unexpected  vehemence,  put  up  his  eye- 
glass and  studied  the  child's  appearance.  Three  days  later,  by 
her  mother's  permission,  Marcella  was  taken  to  the  hairdresser  at 
Marswell  by  Mademoiselle  Renier,  returned  in  all  the  glories  of  a 
"  fringe,"  and,  in  acknowledgment  thereof,  wrote  her  mother  a 
letter  which  for  the  first  time  had  something  else  than  formal 
news  in  it. 


CHAP.  II  MARCELLA  13 

Meanwhile  new  destinies  were  preparing  for  her.  For  a  variety 
of  small  reasons  Mr.  Boyce,  who  had  never  yet  troubled  himself 
about  the  matter  from  a  distance,  was  not,  upon  personal  inspec- 
tion, very  favourably  struck  with  his  daughter's  surroundings. 
His  wife  remarked  shortlj',  when  he  complained  to  her,  that  Mar- 
cella  seemed  to  her  as  well  off  as  the  daughter  of  persons  of  their 
means  could  expect  to  be.  But  jNIr.  Boyce  stuck  to  his  point.  He 
had  just  learnt  that  Harold,  the  only  son  of  his  widowed  brother 
Robert,  of  Mellor  Park,  had  recently  developed  a  deadly  disease, 
which  might  be  long,  but  must  in  the  end  be  sure.  If  the  young 
man  died  and  he  outlived  Robert,  Mellor  Park  would  be  his ;  they 
would  and  must  return,  in  spite  of  certain  obstacles,  to  their  natu- 
ral rank  in  society,  and  Marcella  must  of  course  be  produced  as 
his  daughter  and  heiress.  When  his  wife  repulsed  him,  he  went 
to  his  eldest  sister,  an  old  maid  with  a  small  income  of  her  own, 
who  happened  to  be  staying  with  them,  and  was  the  only  member 
of  his  family  with  whom  he  was  now  on  terms.  She  was  struck 
with  his  remai'ks,  which  bore  on  family  pride,  a  commodity  not 
always  to  be  reckoned  on  in  the  Boyces,  but  which  she  herself  pos- 
sessed in  abundance ;  and  when  he  paused  she  slowly  said  that  if 
an  ideal  school  of  another  type  coiild  be  found  for  Marcella,  she 
would  be  responsible  for  what  it  might  cost  over  and  above  the 
present  arrangement.  Marcella's  manners  were  certainly  rough ; 
it  was  difficult  to  say  what  she  was  learning,  or  with  whom  she 
was  associating;  accomplishments  she  appeared  to  have  none. 
Something  should  certainly  be  done  for  her  —  considering  the 
family  contingencies.  But  being  a  strong  evangelical,  the  aunt 
stipulated  for  "  religious  influences,"  and  said  she  would  wi-ite  to  a 
friend. 

The  result  was  that  a  month  or  two  later  Marcella,  now  close  on 
her  fourteenth  birthday,  was  transferred  from  Cliff  House  to  the 
charge  of  a  lady  who  managed  a  small  but  much-sought-after 
school  for  young  ladies  at  Solesby,  a  watering  place  on  the  east 
coast. 

But  when  in  the  course  of  reminiscence  Marcella  found  herself 
once  more  at  Solesby,  memory  began  to  halt  and  wander,  to  choose 
another  tone  and  method.  At  Solesby  the  rough  surroundings  and 
primitive  teaching  of  Cliff  House,  together  with  her  own  burning 
sense  of  inferiority  and  disadvantage,  had  troubled  her  no  more. 
She  was  well  taught  there,  and  developed  quickly  from  the  trouble- 
some child  into  the  young  lady  duly  broken  in  to  all  social  proprie- 
ties. But  it  was  not  her  lessons  or  her  dancing  masters  that  she 
remembered.  She  had  made  for  herself  agitations  at  Cliff  House, 
but  what  were  they  as  compared  to  the  agitations  of  Solesby ! 


14  MARCELLA  book  i 

Life  there  had  been  one  long  Werthei'ish  romance  in  which  there 
were  few  incidents,  only  feelings,  which  were  themselves  events. 
It  contained  humiliations  and  pleasures,  but  they  had  been  all 
matters  of  spiritual  relation,  connected  with  one  figm-e  only  —  the 
figure  of  her  schoolmistress,  Miss  Pemberton ;  and  with  one  emo- 
tion only — a  passion,  an  adoration,  akin  to  that  she  had  lavished 
on  the  Ellertons,  but  now  much  more  expressive  and  mature.  A 
tall  slender  woman  with  brown,  grey-besprinkled  hair  falling  in 
light  cmis  after  the  fashion  of  our  grandmothers  on  either  cheek, 
and  braided  into  a  classic  knot  behind  —  the  face  of  a  saint,  an 
enthusiast — eyes  overflowing  with  feeling  above  a  thin  firm  mouth 

—  the  mouth  of  the  obstinate  saint,  yet  sweet  also  :  this  delicate 
significant  picture  was  stamped  on  Marcella's  heart.  What  tremors 
of  fear  and  joy  could  she  not  remember  in  connection  with  it  ? 
what  night-vigils  when  a  tired  girl  kept  herself  through  long  hours 
awake  that  she  might  see  at  last  the  door  open  and  a  figure  with  a 
night-lamp  standing  an  instant  in  the  doorway? — for  Miss  Pem- 
berton, who  slept  little  and  read  late,  never  went  to  rest  without 
softly  going  the  rounds  of  her  pupils'  rooms.  What  storms  of  con- 
test, mainly  pi'ovoked  by  Marcella  for  the  sake  of  the  emotions, 
first  of  combat,  then  of  reconciliation  to  which  they  led  !  What  a 
strange  development  on  the  pupil's  side  of  a  certain  histrionic  gift, 
a  turn  for  imaginative  intrigue,  for  endless  small  contrivances  such 
as  might  rouse  or  heighten  the  recurrent  excitements  of  feeling ! 
What  agitated  moments  of  religious  talk !  What  golden  days  in 
the  holidays,  when  long-looked-for  letters  arrived  full  of  religioiis 
admonition,  letters  which  were  carried  about  and  wept  over  till 
they  fell  to  pieces  under  the  stress  of  such  a  worship — what  terrors 
and  agonies  of  a  stimulated  conscience  —  what  remorse  for  sins 
committed  at  school  —  what  zeal  to  confess  them  in  letters  of  a 
passionate  eloqiience  —  and  what  indifference  meanwhile  to  any- 
thing of  the  same  sort  that  might  have  happened  at  home! 

Strange  faculty  that  women  have  for  thus  lavishing  theii*  heart's 
blood  from  their  very  cradles !  Marcella  could  hardly  look  back 
now,  in  the  quiet  of  thought,  to  her  five  years  with  ]Miss  Pember- 
ton without  a  shiver  of  agitation'.  Yet  now  she  never  saw  her. 
It  was  two  years  since  they  parted ;  the  school  was  broken  up ;  her 
idol  had  gone  to  India  to  join  a  widowed  brother.     It  was  all  over 

—  for  ever.  Those  precious  letters  had  worn  themselves  away;  so, 
too,  had  Marcella's  religious  feelings ;  she  was  once  more  another 
being. 

But  these  two  years  since  she  had  said  good-bye  to  Solesby  and 
her  school  days  ?  Once  set  thinking  of  bygones  by  the  stimulus  of 
Mellor  and  its  novelty,  Marcella  must  needs  think,  too,  of  her  Lon- 


CHAP.   II  MARCELLA  15 

don  life,  ot  all  that  it  had  opened  to  her,  and  meant  for  her.  Fresh 
agitations !  —  fresh  passions  !  —  bnt  this  time  impersonal,  passions 
of  the  mind  and  sympathies. 

At  the  time  she  left  Solesby  her  father  and  mother  were  abroad, 
and  it  was  apparently  not  convenient  that  she  should  join  them. 
Marcella,  looking  back,  could  not  remember  that  she  had  ever  been 
much  desired  at  home.  No  doubt  she  had  been  often  moody  and 
tiresome  in  the  holidays  ;  but  she  suspected  —  nay,  was  certain  — 
that  there  had  been  other  and  more  permanent  reasons  why  her 
parents  felt  her  presence  with  them  a  burden.  At  any  rate,  when 
the  moment  came  for  her  to  leave  Miss  Pemberton,  her  mother 
wrote  from  abroad  that,  as  Marcella  had  of  late  shown  decided 
aptitude  both  for  music  and  painting,  it  would  be  well  that  she 
should  cultivate  both  gifts  for  a  while  more  seriously  than  would 
be  possible  at  home.  Mrs.  Boyce  had  made  enquiries,  and  was 
quite  willing  that  her  daughter  should  go,  for  a  time,  to  a  lady 
whose  address  she  enclosed,  and  to  whom  she  herself  had  written 
—  a  lady  who  received  gui-students  working  at  the  South  Kensing- 
ton art  classes. 

So  began  an  experience,  as  novel  as  it  was  strenuous.  Marcella 
soon  developed  all  the  airs  of  independence  and  all  the  jargon  of 
two  professions.  Working  with  consuming  energy  and  ambition, 
she  pushed  her  gifts  so  far  as  to  become  at  least  a  very  intelligent, 
eager,  and  confident  critic  of  the  art  of  other  people  —  which  is 
much.  But  though  art  stirred  and  trained  her,  gave  her  new  hori- 
zons and  new  standards,  it  was  not  in  art  that  she  found  ultimately 
the  chief  excitement  and  motive-power  of  her  new  life  —  not  in 
art,  but  in  the  birth  of  social  and  philanthropic  ardour,  the  sense 
of  a  hithei'to  unsuspected  social  power. 

One  of  her  gu'1-friends  and  fellow-students  had  two  brothers  in 
London,  both  at  work  at  South  Kensington,  and  living  not  far  from 
their  sister.  The  three  were  orphans.  They  sprang  from  a  ner- 
vous, artistic  stock,  and  Marcella  had  never  before  come  near  afcy 
one  capable  of  crowding  so  much  living  into  the  twenty-four  hours. 
The  two  brothers,  both  of  them  skilful  and  artistic  designers  in 
different  lines,  and  hard  at  work  all  day,  were  members  of  a  rising 
Socialist  society,  and  spent  their  evenings  almost  entirely  on  various 
forms  of  social  effort  and  Socialist  propaganda.  They  seemed  to 
Marcella's  young  eyes  absolutely  sincere  and  quite  unworldly. 
They  lived  as  workmen ;  and  both  the  luxuries  and  the  charities 
of  the  rich  were  equally  odious  to  them.  That  there  could  be  any 
"  right "  in  private  property  or  private  wealth  had  become  incredi- 
ble to  them  ;  their  minds  were  full  of  lurid  images  or  resentments 
drawn  from  the  existing  state  of  London ;  and  though  one  was 
humorous  and  handsome,  the  other,  shoi't,  sickly,  and  pedantic, 


16  MARCELLA  book  i 

neither  could  discuss  the  Socialist  ideal  without  passion,  nor  hear 
it  attacked  without  anger.  And  in  milder  measure  their  sister, 
who  possessed  more  artistic  gift  than  either  of  them,  was  like  unto 
them. 

Marcella  saw  much  of  these  three  persons,  and  something  of 
their  friends.  She  went  with  them  to  Socialist  lectures,  or  to  the 
public  evenings  of  the  Venturist  Society,  to  which  the  brothers 
belonged.  Edie,  the  sister,  assaulted  the  imagination  of  her 
friend,  made  her  read  the  books  of  a  certain  eminent  poet  and 
artist,  once  the  poet  of  love  and  dreamland,  "  the  idle  singer  of  an 
empty  day,"  now  seer  and  prophet,  the  herald  of  an  age  to  come, 
in  which  none  shall  possess,  though  all  shall  enjoy.  The  brothers, 
more  ambitious,  attacked  her  through  the  reason,  brought  her 
popular  translations  and  selections  from  Marx  and  Lassalle,  to- 
gether with  each  Venturist  pamphlet  and  essay  as  it  appeared ; 
they  flattered  her  with  technical  talk ;  they  were  full  of  the  impor- 
tance of  women  to  the  new  doctrine  and  the  new  era. 

The  handsome  brother  was  certainly  in  love  with  her;  the  other, 
probably.  Marcella  was  not  in  love  with  either  of  them,  but  she 
was  deeply  interested  in  all  three,  and  for  the  sickly  brother  she 
felt  at  that  time  a  profound  admiration  —  nay,  reverence  —  which 
influenced  her  vitally  at  a  critical  moment  of  life.  "  Blessed  are 
the  poor"  —  "Woe  unto  you,  rich  men  '  —  these  were  the  only 
articles  of  his  scanty  creed,  but  they  were  held  with  a  fervour,  and 
acted  upon  with  a  conviction,  which  our  modern  religion  seldom 
commands.  His  influence  made  Marcella  a  rent-collector  under  a 
lady  friend  of  his  in  the  East  End ;  because  of  it,  she  worked  her- 
self beyond  her  strength  in  a  joint  attempt  made  by  some  mem- 
bers of  the  Venturist  Society  to  organise  a  Tailoresses'  Union ; 
and,  to  please  him,  she  read  articles  and  blue-books  on  Sweating 
and  Overcrowding.  It  was  all  very  moving  and  very  dramatic ; 
so,  too,  was  the  persuasion  Marcella  divined  in  her  friends,  that 
shfe  was  destined  in  time,  with  work  and  experience,  to  great 
things  and  high  place  in  the  movement. 

The  wholly  unexpected  news  of  Mr.  Boyce's  accession  to  Mellor 
had  very  various  effects  upon  this  little  band  of  comrades.  It 
revived  in  Marcella  ambitions,  instincts  and  tastes  wholly  different 
from  those  of  her  companions,  but  natural  to  her  by  temperament 
and  inheritance.  The  elder  brother,  Anthony  Craven,  always 
melancholy  and  suspicious,  divined  her  immediately 

"  How  glad  you  are  to  be  done  with  Bohemia !  "  he  said  to  her 
ironically  one  day,  when  he  had  just  discovered  her  with  the 
photographs  of  Mellor  about  her.     "  And  how  rapidly  it  works  ! '' 

"  What  works?  "  she  asked  him  angrily. 

"  The  poison  of  possession.     And  what  a  mean  end  it  puts  to 


CHAP,  n  MARCELLA  17 

things !  A  week  ago  you  were  all  given  to  causes  not  your  own  ; 
now,  how  long  will  it  take  you  to  think  of  us  as  '  poor  fanatics ! ' 
—  and  to  be  ashamed  you  ever  knew  us  ?  " 

"You  mean  to  say  that  I  am  a  mean  hypocrite!"  she  cried. 
"Do  you  think  that  because  I  delight  in  —  in  pretty  things  and 
old  associations,  I  must  give  up  all  my  convictions  ?  Shall  I  find 
no  poor  at  Mellor  —  no  work  to  do?  It  is  unkind  —  unfair.  It  is 
the  way  all  reform  breaks  down  —  through  mutual  distrust  I  " 

He  looked  at  her  with  a  cold  smile  in  his  dark,  sunken  eyes,  and 
she  turned  from  him  indignantly. 

When  they  bade  her  good-bye  at  the  station,  she  begged  them 
tor  write  to  her. 

" No,  no! "  said  Louis,  the  handsome  younger  brother.  " If  ever 
you  want  us,  we  are  there.  If  you  write,  we  will  answer.  But 
you  won't  need  to  think  about  us  yet  awhile.     Good-bye  !  " 

And  he  pressed  her  hand  with  a  smile. 

The  good  fellow  had  put  all  his  own  di'eams  and  hopes  out  of 
sight  with  a  firm  hand  since  the  arrival  of  her  great  news.  In- 
deed, Marcella  realised  in  them  all  that  she  was  renounced.  Louis 
and  Edith  spoke  with  affection  and  regret.  As  to  Anthony,  from  the 
moment  that  he  set  eyes  upon  the  maid  sent  to  escort  her  to  Mellor, 
and  the  first-class  ticket  that  had  been  purchased  for  her,  Marcella 
perfectly  understood  that  she  had  become  to  him  as  an  enemy. 

"They  shall  see  —  I  will  show  them!  "  she  said  to  herself  with 
angry  energy,  as  the  train  whirled  her  away.  And  her  sense  of 
their  unwarrantable  injustice  kept  her  tense  and  silent  till  she  was 
roused  to  a  childish  and  passionate  pleasure  by  a  first  sight  of  the 
wide  lawns  and  time-stained  front  of  Mellor. 

Of  such  elements,  such  memories  of  persons,  things,  and  events, 
was  Marcella's  reverie  by  the  window  made  up.  One  thing,  how- 
ever, which,  clearly,  this  report  of  it  has  not  explained,  is  that 
spirit  of  energetic  discontent  with  her  past  in  which  she  had  en- 
tered on  her  musings.  Why  such  soreness  of  spirit  ?  Her  child- 
hood had  been  pinched  and  loveless ;  but,  after  all,  it  could  well 
bear  comparison  with  that  of  many  another  child  of  impoverished 
parents.  There  had  been  compensations  all  through  —  and  were 
not  the  great  passion  of  her  Solesby  days,  together  with  the  inter- 
est and  novelty  of  her  London  experience,  enough  to  give  zest  and 
glow  to  the  whole  retrospect? 

Ah  !  but  it  will  be  observed  that  in  this  sketch  of  Marcella's 
school  days  nothing  has  been  said  of  Marcella's  holidays.  In  this 
omission  the  narrative  has  but  followed  the  hasty,  half-conscious 
gaps  and  slurs  of  the  girl's  own  thought.  For  Marcella  never 
thought  of  those  holidays  and  all  that  was  connected  with  them  in 
c 


18  MARCELLA  book  i 

detail,  if  she  could  possibly  avoid  it.  But  it  was  with  them,  in 
truth,  and  with  what  they  implied,  that  she  was  so  irritably  anx- 
ious to  be  done  when  she  first  began  to  be  reflective  by  the  win- 
dow ;  and  it  was  to  them  she  returned  with  vague,  but  still  intense 
consciousness  when  the  rush  of  active  reminiscence  died  away. 

That  surely  was  the  breakfast  bell  ringing,  and  with  the  digni- 
fied ancestral  sound  which  was  still  so  novel  and  attractive  to  Mar- 
cella's  ear.  Recalled  to  Mellor  Park  and  its  circumstances,  she 
went  thoughtfully  downstau-s,  pondering  a  little  on  the  shallow 
steps  of  the  beautiful  Jacobean  staircase.  Could  she  ever  turn  her 
back  upon  those  holidays?  Was  she  not  rather,  so  to  speak,  just 
embarked  upon  their  sequel,  or  second  volume  ? 

But  let  us  go  downstairs  also. 


CHAPTER    m 

Breakfast  was  laid  in  the  "Chinese  room,"  a  room  which 
formed  part  of  the  stately  "  garden  front,"  added  to  the  original 
structure  of  the  house  in  the  eighteenth  century  by  a  Boyce  whose 
wife  had  money.  The  decorations,  especially  of  the  domed  and 
vaulted  roof,  were  supposed  by  their  eighteenth  century  designer 
to  be  "  Oriental  " ;  they  were,  at  any  rate,  intricate  and  overladen ; 
and  the  figures  of  mandarins  on  the  worn  and  discoloured  wall- 
paper had,  at  least,  top-knots,  pig-tails,  and  petticoats  to  distin- 
guish them  from  the  ordinary  Englishmen  of  1760,  besides  a 
charming  mellowness  of  colour  and  general  effect  bestowed  on 
them  by  time  and  dilapidation.  The  marble  mantelpiece  was 
elaborately  carved  in  Chinamen  and  pagodas.  There  were  Chi- 
nese curiosities  of  a  miscellaneous  kind  on  the  tables,  and  the  beau- 
tiful remains  of  an  Indian  carpet  underfoot.  Unluckily,  some 
later  Boyce  had  thrust  a  crudely  Gothic  sideboard,  with  an  arched 
and  pillared  front,  adapted  to  the  purposes  of  a  warming  appara- 
tus, into  the  midst  of  the  mandarins,  which  disturbed  the  general 
effect.  But  with  all  its  original  absurdities,  and  its  modern  deface- 
ments, the  room  was  a  beautiful  and  stately  one.  Marcella  stepped 
into  it  with  a  slight  unconscious  straightening  of  her  tall  form.  It 
seemed  to  her  that  she  had  never  breathed  easily  till  now,  in  the 
ample  space  of  these  rooms  and  gardens. 

Her  father  and  mother  were  already  at  table,  together  with  Mrs. 
Boyce's  brown  spaniel  Lynn. 

Mr.  Boyce  was  employed  in  ordering  about  the  tall  boy  in  a 
worn  and  greasy  livery  coat,  who  represented  the  men-service  of 
the  establishment;  his  wife  was  talking  to  her  dog,  but  from  the 


CHAP.  HI  MARCELLA  19 

lift  of  her  eyebrows,  and  the  twitching  of  her  thin  lips,  it  was  plain 
to  Marcella  that  her  mother  was  as  usnal  of  opinion  that  her  father 
was  behaving  foolishly. 

"  Thei'e,  for  goodness'  sake,  cut  so7ne  bread  on  the  sideboard," 
said  the  angry  master,  "  and  hand  it  round  instead  of  staring  about 
you  like  a  stuck  pig.  What  they  taught  you  at  Sir  William  Jute's 
I  can't  conceive.  /  didn't  undertake  to  make  a  man-servant  of 
you,  sir.'' 

The  pale,  harassed  lad  flew  at  the  bread,  cut  it  with  a  vast  scat- 
tering of  crumbs,  handed  it  clumsily  round,  and  then  took  glad 
advantage  of  a  short  supply  of  coffee  to  bolt  from  the  room  to 
order  more. 

"  Idiot !  "  said  Mr.  Boyce,  with  an  angry  frown,  as  he  disappeared. 

"  If  you  would  allow  Ann  to  do  her  proper  parlour  work  again,'' 
said  his  wife,  blandly,  "  you  would,  I  think,  be  less  annoyed.  And 
as  I  believe  WiUiam  was  boot  boy  at  the  Jutes',  it  is  not  surprising 
that  he  did  not  learn  waiting." 

"  I  tell  you,  Evelyn,  that  our  position  demands  a  man-servant !  " 
was  the  hot  reply.  "  None  of  my  family  have  ever  attempted  to 
run  this  house  with  women  only.  It  would  be  unseemly  —  unfit- 
ting —  incon  —  " 

"  Oh,  I  am  no  judge  of  course  of  what  a  Boyce  may  do ! "  said 
his  wife,  carelessly.     "I  leave  that  to  you  and  the  neighbourhood." 

Mr.  Boyce  looked  uncomfortable,  cooled  down,  and  presently 
when  the  coffee  came  back  asked  his  wife  for  a  fresh  supply  in 
tones  from  which  all  bellicosity  had  for  the  time  departed.  He 
was  a  small  and  singularly  thin  man,  with  blue  wandering  eyes 
under  the  blackest  possible  eyebrows  and  hair.  The  cheeks  were 
hollow,  the  complexion  as  yellow  as  that  of  the  typical  Anglo- 
Indian.  The  special  character  of  the  mouth  was  hidden  by  a  fine 
black  moustache,  but  his  prevailing  expression  varied  between  irri- 
tability and  a  kind  of  plaintiveness.  The  conspicuous  blue  eyes 
were  as  a  rule  melancholy  ;  but  they  could  be  childishly  bright  and 
self-assertive.  There  was  a  general  air  of  breeding  about  Richard 
Boyce,  of  that  air  at  any  rate  which  our  common  generalisations 
connect  with  the  pride  of  old  family;  his  dress  was  careful  and 
correct  to  the  last  detail;  and  his  hands  with  their  long  fingers 
were  of  an  excessive  delicacy,  though  marred  as  to  beauty  by  a 
thinness  which  nearly  amounted  to  emaciation. 

"  The  servants  say  they  must  leave  unless  the  ghost  does,  i\Iar- 
cella,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  suddenly,  laying  a  morsel  of  toast  as  she 
spoke  on  Lynn's  nose.  "  Some  one  from  the  village  of  course  has 
been  talking  —  the  cook  says  she  heard  something  last  night,  tlioiigli 
she  will  not  condescend  to  particulars  —  and  in  general  it  seems  to 
me  that  you  and  I  may  be  left  before  long  to  do  the  house  work." 


20  MAECELLA  book  i 

"What  do  they  say  hi  the  village?"  asked  Marcella,  eagerly. 
"  Oh !  they  say  there  was  a  Boyce  two  hundred  years  ago  who 
fled  down  here  from  London  after  doing  something  he  shouldn't 

—  I  really  forget  what.  The  sheriff's  officers  were  ,  advancing  on 
the  house.  Their  approach  displeased  him,  and  he  put  an  end  to 
himself  at  the  head  of  the  little  staircase  leading  from  the  tapestry- 
room  down  to  my  sitting-room.  Why  did  he  choose  the  staircase  ?'' 
said  IMrs.  Boyce  with  light  reflectiveness. 

"  It  won't  do,''  said  Marcella,  shaking  her  head.  "  I  know  the 
Boyce  they  mean.  He  was  a  ruffian,  but  he  shot  himself  in  Lon- 
don ;  and,  anyway,  he  was  dead  long  before  that  staircase  was 
built.'' 

"  Dear  me,  how  well  up  you  are  ! '  said  her  mother.  "  Suppose 
you  give  a  little  lecture  on  the  family  in  the  servants'  hall.  Though 
I  never  knew  a  ghost  yet  that  was  undone  by  dates." 

There  was  a  satiric  detachment  in  her  tone  which  contrasted 
sharply  with  Marcella's  amused  but  sympathetic  interest.  Detach' 
ment  was  perhaps  the  characteristic  note  of  Mrs  Boyce  s  manner 

—  a  curious  separateness,  as  it  were,  from  all  the  things  and  human 
beings  immediately  about  her 

Marcella  pondered. 

"  I  shall  ask  Mr.  Harden  about  the  stories,"  she  said  presently. 
"  He  will  have  heard  them  in  the  village.  I  am  going  to  the  church 
this  morning.' 

Her  mother  looked  at  her  —  a  look  of  quiet  examination  —  and 
smiled.  The  Lady  Bountiful  airs  that  Marcella  had  already  as- 
sumed during  the  six  weeks  she  had  been  in  the  house  entertained 
Mrs.  Boyce  exceedingly. 

"  Harden  ! "  said  Mr.  Boyce,  catching  the  name.  "  I  wish  that 
man  would  leave  me  alone.  What  have  I  got  to  do  with  a  water- 
supply  for  the  village  ?  It  will  be  as  much  as  ever  I  can  manage 
to  keep  a  water-tight  roof  over  our  heads  during  the  winter  after 
the  way  in  which  Robert  has  behaved." 

Marcella's  cheek  flushed. 

"  The  village  water-supply  is  a  disgrace,"  she  said  with  low  em- 
phasis. "  I  never  saw  such  a  crew  of  unhealthy,  wretched-looking 
children  in  my  life  as  swarm  about  those  cottages.  We  take  the 
rent,  and  we  ought  to  look  after  them.  I  believe  you  could  be 
forced  to  do  something,  papa  —  if  the  local  authority  were  of  any 
use." 

She  looked  at  him  defiantly. 

"  Nonsense,"  said  Mr.  Boyce,  testily.  "  They  got  along  in  your 
Uncle  Robert's  days,  and  they  can  get  along  now.  Charity,  indeed ! 
Why,  the  state  of  this  house  and  the  innch  for  money  altogether 
is  enough,  I  should  think,  to  take  a  man's  mind.     Don't  you  go 


CHAP.  Ill  MARCELLA  21 

talking  to  Mr.  Harden  in  the  way  you  do,  INIarcella.  I  don't  lik^ 
it,  and  I  won't  have  it.  You  have  the  interests  of  your  family  and 
your  home  to  think  of  first." 

"  Poor  starved  things !  "  said  Marcella,  sarcastically  —  "  living  in 
such  a  den  1 " 

And  she  swept  her  white  hand  round,  as  though  calling  to  wit- 
ness the  room  in  which  they  sat. 

"  I  tell  you,"  said  Mr.  Boyce,  rising  and  standing  before  the  fire, 
whence  he  angrily  surveyed  the  handsome  daughter  who  was  in 
truth  so  little  known  to  him,  and  whose  nature  and  aims  during 
the  close  contact  of  the  last  few  weeks  had  become  something  of  a 
perplexity  and  disturbance  to  him,  —  "I  tell  you  our  great  effort, 
the  effort  of  us  all,  must  be  to  keep  up  the  family  position  !  —  our 
position.  Look  at  that  library,  and  its  condition  ;  look  at  the  state 
of  these  wall-papers ;  look  at  the  garden  ;  look  at  the  estate  books 
if  it  comes  to  that.  Why,  it  will  be  years  before,  even  with  all  my 
knowledge  of  affairs,  I  can  pull  the  thing  through  —  years !  " 

IVIrs.  Boyce  gave  a  slight  cough  —  she  had  pushed  back  her  chair, 
and  was  alternately  studying  her  husband  and  daughter.  They 
might  have  been  actors  pei'forming  for  her  amixsement.  And  yet, 
amusement  is  not  precisely  the  word.  For  that  hazel  eye,  with  its 
frequent  smile,  had  not  a  spark  of  geniality.  After  a  time  those 
about  her  found  something  scathing  in  its  dry  light. 

Now,  as  soon  as  her  husband  became  aware  that  she  was  watch- 
ing him,  his  look  wavered,  and  his  mood  collapsed.  He  threw  her 
a  curious  furtive  glance,  and  fell  silent. 

"  I  suppose  ]VIi\  Harden  and  his  sister  remind  you  of  your  Lon- 
don Socialist  fiuends,  Marcella?"  asked  Mrs.  Boyce  lightly,  in  the 
pause  that  followed.   "You  have,  I  see,  taken  a  great  likingfor  them." 

"  Oh !  well  —  I  don't  know,"  said  Marcella,  with  a  shrug,  and 
something  of  a  proud  reticence.  "  Mr.  Harden  is  very  kind  —  but 
—  he  doesn't  seem  to  have  thought  much  about  things." 

She  never  talked  about  her  London  friends  to  her  mother,  if  she 
could  help  it  The  sentiments  of  life  generally  avoided  Mrs.  Boyce 
when  they  could.  Marcella  being  all  sentiment  and  impulse,  was 
constantly  her  mother's  victim,  do  what  she  would.  But  in  her 
quiet  moments  she  stood  on  the  defensive. 

"  So  the  Socialists  are  the  only  people  who  think  ?  "  said  Mrs. 
Boyce,  who  was  now  standing  by  the  window,  pressing  her  dog's 
head  against  her  dress  as  he  pushed  up  against  her.  "  Well,  I  am 
sorry  for  the  Hardens.  They  tell  me  they  give  all  their  substance 
away  —  already  —  and  every  one  says  it  is  going  to  be  a  particu- 
larly bad  winter.  The  living,  I  hear,  is  worth  nothing.  All  the 
same,  I  should  wish  them  to  look  more  cheerful.  It  is  the  first 
duty  of  martyrs." 


22  MARCELLA  book  i 

Marcella  looked  at  her  mother  indignantly.  It  seemed  to  her 
often  that  she  said  the  most  heartless  things  imaginable. 

"  Cheerful !  "  she  said  —  "in  a  village  like  this  —  with  all  the 
young  men  drifting  off  to  London,  and  all  the  well-to-do  people 
dissenters  —  no  one  to  stand  by  him  —  no  money  and  no  helpers 
—  the  people  always  ill  —  wages  eleven  and  twelve  shillings  a 
week  —  and  only  the  old  wrecks  of  men  left  to  do  the  work  !  He 
might,  I  think,  expect  the  people  in  tJiis  house  to  back  him  up  a 
little.  All  he  asks  is  that  papa  should  go  and  satisfy  himself  with 
his  own  eyes  as  to  the  difference  between  our  property  and  Lord 
Maxwell's  —  " 

"  Lord  Maxwell's !  "  cried  Mr.  Boyce,  rousing  himself  from  a 
state  of  half-melancholy,  half-sleepy  reverie  by  the  fire,  and  throw- 
ing away  his  cigarette  —  "  Lord  Maxwell !  Difference  !  I  should 
think  so.  Thirty  thousand  a  year,  if  he  has  a  penny.  By  the 
way,  I  wish  he  would  just  have  the  civility  to  answer  my  note 
about  those  coverts  over  by  Willow  Scrubs !  " 

He  had  hardly  said  the  words  when  the  door  opened  to  admit 
William  the  footman,  in  his  usual  tremor  of  nervousness,  carrying 
a  salver  and  a  note. 

"  The  man  says,  please  sir,  is  there  any  answer,  sir?" 

"  Well,  that's  odd ! "  said  Mr.  Boyce,  his  look  brightening. 
"  Here  is  Lord  Maxwell's  answer,  just  as  I  was  talking  of  it." 

His  wife  turned  sharply  and  watched  him  take  it;  her  lips 
parted,  a  strange  expectancy  in  her  whole  attitude.  He  tore  it 
open,  read  it,  and  then  threw  it  angrily  under  the  grate. 

"No  answer.  Shut  the  door."  The  lad  retreated.  Mr.  Boyce 
sat  down  and  began  carefuUy  to  put  the  fire  together.  His  thin 
left  hand  shook  vipon  his  knee. 

There  was  a  moment's  pause  of  complete  silence.  Mrs.  Boyce's 
face  might  have  been  seen  by  a  close  observer  to  quiver  and  then 
stiffen  as  she  stood  in  the  light  of  the  window,  a  taU  and  queenly 
figure  in  her  sweeping  black.  But  she  said  not  a  word,  and  pres- 
ently left  the  room. 

Marcella  watched  her  father. 

"  Papa  — ?t'as  that  a  note  from  Lord  Maxwell?" 

Mr.  Boyce  looked  i-ound  with  a  start,  as  though  surprised  that  any 
one  was  still  there.  It  struck  Marcella  that  he  looked  yellow  and 
shrunken  —  years  older  than  her  mother.  An  impulse  of  tenderness, 
joined  with  anger  and  a  sudden  sick  depression  —  she  was  con- 
scious of  them  all  as  she  got  up  and  went  across  to  him,  determined 
to  speak  out.  Her  parents  were  not  her  friends,  and  did  not  pos- 
sess her  confidence ;  but  her  constant  separation  from  them  since 
her  childhood  had  now  sometimes  the  result  of  giving  her  the  bold- 
ness with  them  that  a  stranser  might  have  had.    She  had  no  habit- 


CHAP.  Ill  MARCELLA  23 

ual  deference  to  break  through,  and  the  hindermg  restraints  of 
memory,  thougli  strong,  were  still  less  strong  than  they  would  have 
been  if  she  had  lived  with  them  day  by  day  and  year  by  year,  and 
had  known  their  lives  in  close  detail  instead  of  guessing  at  them, 
as  was  now  so  often  the  case  with  her. 

"  Papa,  is  Lord  Maxwell's  note  an  uncivil  one  ?  " 

Mr.  Boyce  stooped  forward  and  began  to  rub  his  chilly  hand 
over  the  blaze. 

"  Why,  that  man's  only  son  and  I  used  to  loaf  and  shoot  and 
play  cricket  together  from  morning  till  night  when  we  were  boys. 
Henry  Raeburn  was  a  bit  older  than  I,  and  he  lent  me  the  gun 
with  which  I  shot  my  first  rabbit.  It  was  in  one  of  the  fields  over 
by  Soleyhurst,  just  where  the  two  estates  join.  After  that  we  were 
always  companions  — we  used  to  go  out  at  night  with  the  keepers 
after  poachers ;  we  spent  hours  in  the  snow  watching  for  wood- 
pigeons  ;  we  shot  that  pair  of  kestrels  over  the  inner  hall  door,  in 
the  Windmill  Hill  fields  —  at  least  I  did  —  I  was  a  better  shot  than 
he  by  that  time.     He  didn't  like  Robert  —  he  always  wanted  me." 

"Well,  papa,  but  what  does  he  say?"  asked  Marcella,  impa- 
tiently. She  laid  her  hand,  however,  as  she  spoke,  on  her  father's 
shoulder, 

Mr.  Boyce  winced  and  looked  up  at  her.  He  and  her  mother 
had  originally  sent  their  daughter  away  from  home  that  they 
might  avoid  the  daily  worry  of  her  awakening  curiosities,  and 
one  of  his  resolutions  in  coming  to  Mellor  Park  had  been  to  keep 
up  his  dignity  with  her.  But  the  sight  of  her  dark  face  bent  upon 
him,  softened  by  a  quick  and  womanly  compassion,  seemed  to  set 
free  a  new  impulse  in  him. 

"  He  writes  in  the  third  person,  if  you  want  to  know,  my  dear, 
and  refers  me  to  his  agent,  very  much  as  though  I  were  some  Lon- 
don grocer  who  had  just  bought  the  place.  Oh,  it  is  quite  evident 
what  he  means.  They  were  here  without  moving  all  through  June 
and  July,  and  it  is  now  three  weeks  at  least  since  he  and  Miss 
Raeburn  came  back  from  Scotland,  and  not  a  card  nor  a  word 
from  either  of  them !  Nor  from  the  Winterbournes,  nor  the 
Levens.  Pleasant !  Well,  my  dear,  you  nuist  make  up  your 
mind  to  it.  I  did  think  —  I  was  fool  enough  to  think  —  that 
when  I  came  back  to  the  old  place,  my  father's  old  friends  would 
let  bygones  be  bygones.  I  never  did  them  any  harm.  Let  them 
'gang  their  gait,'  confound  them!  "  —  the  little  dark  man  straight- 
ened himself  fiercely  —  "I  can  get  my  pleasure  out  of  the  land ;  and 
as  for  your  mother,  she'd  not  lift  a  finger  to  propitiate  one  of  them  !  " 

In  the  last  words,  however,  there  was  not  a  fraction  of  that 
sympathetic  pride  which  the  ear  expected,  but  rather  fresh  bit- 
terness and  grievance. 


24  MARCELLA  book  i 

Marcella  stood  thinking,  her  mind  travelling  hither  and  thither 
with  lightning  speed,  now  over  the  social  events  of  the  last  six 
weeks  —  now  over  incidents  of  those  long-past  holidays.  Was 
this,  indeed,  the  second  volume  beginning  —  the  natural  sequel 
to  those  old  mysterious  histories  of  shrinking,  disillusion,  and 
repulse  ? 

"  What  was  it  you  wanted  about  those  coverts,  papa  ? "  she 
asked  presently,  with  a  quick  decision. 

"  AVhat  the  deuce  does  it  matter  ?  If  you  want  to  knoW;  I  pro- 
posed to  him  to  exchange  my  coverts  over  by  the  Scrubs,  which 
work  in  with  his  shooting,  for  the  wood  down  by  the  Home  Farm. 
It  was  an  exchange  made  year  after  year  in  my  father's  time. 
When  I  spoke  to  the  keeper,  I  found  it  had  been  allowed  to  lapse. 
Your  uncle  let  the  shooting  go  to  rack  and  ruin  after  Harold's 
death.  It  gave  me  something  to  write  about,  and  I  was  deter- 
mined to  know  where  I  stood —  Well!  the  old  Pharisee  can  go 
his  way  :  I'll  go  mine." 

And  with  a  spasmodic  attempt  to  play  the  squire  of  Mellor  on 
his  native  heath,  Richard  Boyce  rose,  drew  his  emaciated  frame 
to  its  full  height,  and  stood  looking  out  drearily  to  his  ancestral 
lawns  —  a  picturesque  and  elegant  figure,  for  all  its  weakness  and 
pitiableness. 

"  I  shall  ask  Mr.  Aldous  Raeburn  about  it,  if  I  see  him  in  the 
village  to-day,"  said  Marcella,  quietly. 

Her  father  started,  and  looked  at  her  with  some  attention. 

"  What  have  you  seen  of  Aldous  Raeburn  ?  "  he  inquired.  "  I 
remember  hearing  that  you  had  come  across  him." 

"  Certainly  I  have  come  across  him.  I  have  met  him  once  or 
twice  at  the  Vicarage  —  and  —  oh  !  on  one  or  two  other  occasions," 
said  Marcella,  carelessly.  "  He  has  always  made  himself  agree- 
able. Mr.  Harden  says  his  grandfather  is  devoted  to  him,  and 
will  hardly  ever  let  him  go  away  from  home.  He  does  a  great 
deal  for  Lord  Maxwell  now :  writes  for  him,  and  helps  to  manage 
the  estate ;  and  next  year,  when  the  Tories  come  back  and  Lord 
Maxwell  is  in  office  again  —  " 

"  Why,  of  course,  there'll  be  plums  for  the  gi'andson,''  said  Mr. 
Boyce  with  a  sneer.  "  That  goes  without  saying  —  though  we  are 
such  a  virtuous  lot." 

"  Oh  yes,  he'll  get  on  —  everybody  says  so.  And  he'll  deserve 
it  too ! "  she  added,  her  eye  kindling  combatively  as  she  surveyed 
her  father.  "  He  takes  a  lot  of  trouble  down  here  about  the  cot- 
tages and  the  board  of  guardians  and  the  farms.  The  Hardens 
like  him  very  much,  but  he  is  not  exactly  popular,  according  to 
them.  His  manners  are  sometimes  shy  and  awkward,  and  the 
poor  people  think  he's  proud." 


CHAT,    in  MARCELLA  26 

"Ah!  a  prig  I  dare  say  —  like  some  of  his  uncles  before  him," 
said  Mr.  Boyce,  irritably.     "  But  he  was  civil  to  you,  you  say  ?  " 

And  again  he  turned  a  quick  considering  eye  on  his  daughter. 

"  Oh  dear !  yes,"  said  JNIarcella,  with  a  little  proud  smile. 
There  was  a  pause ;  then  she  spoke  again.  "  I  must  go  off  to 
the  church;  the  Hardens  have  hard  work  just  now  with  the  har- 
vest festival,  and  I  promised  to  take  them  some  flowers." 

"  Well  —  said  her  father,  grudgingly,  "  so  long  as  you  don't 
promise  anything  on  my  account !  I  tell  you,  I  haven't  got  six- 
pence to  spend  on  subscriptions  to  anything  or  anybody.  By  the 
way,  if  you  see  Reynolds  anywhere  about  the  drive,  you  can  send 
him  to  me.  He  and  I  are  going  round  the  Home  Farm  to  pick 
up  a  few  birds  if  we  can,  and  see  what  the  coverts  look  like.  The 
stock  has  all  run  down,  and  the  place  has  been  poached  to  death. 
But  he  thinks  if  we  take  on  an  extra  man  in  the  spi'ing,  and  spend 
a  little  on  rearing,  we  shall  do  pretty  decently  next  year." 
-    The  colour  leapt  to  Marcella's  cheek  as  she  tied  on  her  hat. 

"  You  will  set  up  another  keeper,  and  you  won't  do  anything 
for  the  village?"  she  cried,  her  black  eyes  lightening,  and  without 
another  word  she  opened  the  French  window  and  walked  rapidly 
away  along  the  terrace,  leaving  her  father  both  angered  and 
amazed.        ' 

A  man  like  Richard  Boyce  cannot  get  comfortably  through  life 
without  a  good  deal  of  masquerading  in  which  those  in  his  imme- 
diate neighbourhood  are  expected  to  join.  His  wife  had  long 
since  consented  to  play  the  game,  on  condition  of  making  it 
plain  the  whole  time  that  she  was  no  dupe.  As  to  what  Mar- 
cella's part  in  the  affair  might  be  going  to  be,  her  father  was 
as  yet  uneasily  in  the  dark.  What  constantly  astonished  him, 
as  she  moved  and  talked  under  his  eye,  was  the  girl's  beauty. 
Surely  she  had  been  a  plain  child,  though  a  striking  one.  But 
now  she  had  not  only  beauty,  but  the  air  of  beauty.  The  self- 
confidence  given  by  the  possession  of  good  looks  was  very  evident 
in  her  behaviour.  She  was  very  accomplished,  too,  and  more 
clever  than  was  always  quite  agreeable  to  a  father  whose  self- 
conceit  was  one  of  the  few  compensations  left  him  by  misfortune. 
Such  a  girl  was  sure  to  be  admired.  She  would  have  lovers  — 
friends  of  her  own.  It  seemed  that  already,  while  Lord  Maxwell 
was  preparing  to  insult  the  father,  his  grandson  had  discovered 
that  the  daughter  was  handsome.  Richard  Boyce  fell  into  a 
miserable  reverie,  wherein  the  Raeburns'  behaviour  and  Mar- 
cella's unexpected  gifts  played  about  equal  parts. 

Meanwhile  Marcella  was  gathering  flowers  in  the  "  Cedar  gar- 
den," the  most  adorable  corner  of  Mellor  Park,  where  the  original 


26  MARCELLA  book  i 

Tudor  house,  grey,  muUioned  and  ivy-covered,  ran  at  right  angles 
into  the  later  "garden  front,"  which  projected  beyond  it  to  the 
south,  making  thereby  a  sunny  and  sheltered  corner  where  roses, 
clematis,  hollyhocks,  and  sunflowers  grew  with  a  more  lavish 
height  and  blossom  than  elsewhere,  as  though  conscious  they 
must  do  their  part  in  a  whole  of  beauty.  The  grass  indeed 
wanted  mowing,  and  the  first  autumn  leaves  lay  thickly  drifted 
upon  it;  the  flowers  were  untied  and  untriramed.  But  under  the 
condition  of  two  gardeners  to  ten  acres  of  garden,  nature  does 
very  much  as  she  pleases,  and  Mr.  Boyce  when  he  came  that  way 
grumbled  in  vain. 

As  for  Marcella,  she  was  alternately  moved  to  revolt  and  ten- 
derness by  the  ragged  charm  of  the  old  place. 

On  the  one  hand,  it  angered  her  that  anything  so  plainly  meant 
for  beauty  and  dignity  should  go  so  neglected  and  unkempt.  On 
the  other,  if  house  and  gardens  had  been  spick  and  span  like  the 
other  houses  of  the  neighbourhood,  if  there  had  been  sound  roofs, 
a  modern  water-supply,  shutters,  greenhouses,  and  weedless  paths, 
—  in  short,  the  general  self-complacent  air  of  a  well-kept  country 
house,  —  where  would  have  been  that  thrilling  intimate  appeal,  as 
for  something  forlornly  lovely,  which  the  old  place  so  constantly 
made  upon  her?  It  seemed  to  depend  even  upon  her,  the  latest 
born  of  all  its  children  —  to  ask  for  tendance  and  cherishing  even 
from  her.  She  was  always  planning  how  —  with  a  minimum  of 
money  to  spend  —  it  could  be  comforted  and  healed,  and  in  the 
planning  had  grown  in  these  few  weeks  to  love  it  as  though  she 
had  been  bred  there. 

But  this  morning  Marcella  picked  her  roses  and  sunflowers  in 
tumult  and  depression  of  spirit.  What  loas  this  past  which  in 
these  new  surroundings  was  like  some  vainly  fled  tyrant  clutching 
at  them  again?  She  energetically  decided  that  the  time  had  come 
for  her  to  demand  the  truth.  Yet,  of  whom  ?  Marcella  knew  very 
well  that  to  force  her  mother  to  any  line  of  action  Mrs.  Boyce  was 
unwilling  to  follow,  was  beyond  her  power.  And  it  was  not  easy 
to  go  to  her  father  directly  and  say,  "  Tell  me  exactly  how  and 
why  it  is  that  society  has  turned  its  back  upon  you."  All  the 
same,  it  was  due  to  them  all,  due  to  herself  especially,  now  that 
she  was  grown  up  and  at  home,  that  she  should  not  be  kept  in  the 
dark  any  longer  like  a  baby,  that  she  should  be  put  in  possession 
of  the  facts  which,  after  all,  threatened  to  stand  here  at  Mellor 
Park,  as  untowardly  in  their,  in  her  way,  as  they  had  done  in  the 
shabby  school  and  lodging-house  existence  of  all  those  bygone 
years. 

Perhaps  the  secret  of  her  impatience  was  that  she  did  not,  and 
could  not,  believe  that  the  facts,  if  faced,  would  turn  out  to  be 


CHAT.     HI 


MARCELLA  27 


iusunuouutable.  Her  instinct  told  her  as  she  looked  back  that 
their  relation  toward  society  in  the  past,  though  full  of  discom- 
forts and  huniiliations,  had  not  been  the  relation  of  outcasts. 
Their  poverty  and  the  shifts  to  which  poverty  drives  people  had 
brought  them  the  disrespect  of  one  class ;  and  as  to  the  accpiaint- 
ances  and  friends  of  their  own  rank,  what  had  been  mainly 
shown  them  had  been  a  sort  of  cool  distaste  for  their  company,  an 
insulting  readiness  to  forget  the  existence  of  people  who  had  so  to 
speak  lost  their  social  bloom,  and  laid  themselves  open  to  the  con- 
temptuous disapproval  or  pity  of  the  world.  Everybody,  it  seemed, 
knew  their  affairs,  and  knowing  them  saw  no  personal  advan- 
tage and  distinction  in  the  Boyces'  acquaintance,  but  rather  the 
contrary 

As  she  put  the  facts  together  a  little,  she  realised,  however, 
that  the  breach  had  always  been  deepest  between  her  father  and 
his  relations,  or  his  oldest  friends.  A  little  shiver  passed  through 
her  as  she  reflected  that  here,  in  his  own  country,  where  his  his- 
tory was  best  known,  the  feeling  towards  him,  whatever  it  rested 
upon,  might  very  probably  be  strongest.  Well,  it  was  hard  upon 
them!  —  hard  upon  her  mother  —  hard  upon  her.  In  her  first 
ecstasy  over  the  old  ancestral  house  and  the  dignities  of  her  new 
position,  how  little  she  had  thought  of  these  things !  And  there 
they  were  all  the  time  —  dogging  and  thwarting. 

She  walked  slowly  along,  with  her  burden  of  flowers,  through  a 
laurel  path  which  led  straight  to  the  drive,  and  so,  across  it,  to  the 
little  church.  The  church  stood  all  alone  there  under  the  great 
limes  of  tlie  Park,  far  away  from  parsonage  and  village  —  the 
property,  it  seemed,  of  the  big  house.  When  INIarcella  entered, 
the  doors  on  the  north  and  south  sides  were  both  standing  open, 
for  the  vicar  and  his  sister  had  been  already  at  work  thei'e,  and 
had  but  gone  back  to  the  parsonage  for  a  bit  of  necessaiy  business, 
meaning  to  return  in  half  an  hour. 

It  was  the  unpretending  church  of  a  hamlet,  girt  outside  by  the 
humble  graves  of  toiling  and  forgotten  generations,  and  adorned, 
or,  at  any  rate,  diversified  within  by  a  group  of  mural  monuments, 
of  various  styles  and  dates,  but  all  of  them  bearing,  in  some  way 
or  another,  the  name  of  Boyce  —  conspicuous  amongst  them  a 
florid  cherub-crowned  tomb  in  the  chancel,  marking  the  remains 
of  that  Parliamentarian  Boyce  who  fought  side  by  side  with  Hamp- 
den, his  boyish  friend,  at  Chalgrove  Field,  lived  to  be  driven  out 
of  Westminster  by  Colonel  Pryde,  and  to  spend  his  later  years  at 
Mellor,  in  disgrace,  first  with  the  Protector,  and  then  with  the 
Restoration.  From  these  monuments  alone  a  tolerably  faithful 
idea  of  the  Boyce  family  could  have  been  gathered.  Clearly  not  a 
family. of  any  very  great  pretensions  —  a  race  for  the  most  part 


28  MAKCELLA  book  i 

of  frugal,  upright  country  gentlemen —  to  be  found,  with  scarcely 
an  exception,  on  the  side  of  political  liberty,  and  of  a  Whiggish 
religion ;  men  who  had  given  their  sons  to  die  at  Quebec,  and 
Plassy,  and  Trafalgar,  for  the  making  of  England's  Empire ;  who 
would  have  voted  with  Fox,  but  that  the  terrors  of  Burke,  and  a 
dogged  sense  that  the  country  must  be  carried  on,  drove  them  into 
supporting  Pitt ;  who,  at  home,  dispensed  alternate  justice  and 
doles,  and  when  their  wives  died  put  up  inscriptions  to  them  in- 
tended to  bear  witness  at  once  to  the  Latinity  of  a  Boyce's  educa- 
tion, and  the  pious  strength  of  his  legitimate  affections  —  a  tedious 
race  perhaps  and  pig-headed,  t^n^-annical  too  here  and  there,  but  on 
the  whole  honourable  English  stuif  —  the  stuff  which  has  made, 
and  still  in  new  forms  sustains,  the  fabric  of  a  great  state. 

Only  once  was  there  a  bi'eak  in  the  uniform  character  of  the 
monuments  —  a  break  corresponding  to  the  highest  moment  of 
the  Boyce  fortunes,  a  moment  when  the  respectability  of  the 
family  rose  suddenly  into  brilliance,  and  the  prose  of  genera- 
tions broke  into  a  few  years  of  poetry.  Somewhere  in  the  last 
century  an  earlier  Richard  Boyce  went  abroad  to  make  the  grand 
tour.  He  was  a  man  of  jjarts,  the  friend  of  Horace  Walpole  and 
of  Gray,  and  his  introductions  opened  to  him  whatever  doors  he 
might  wish  to  enter,  at  a  time  when  the  upper  classes  of  the  lead- 
ing European  nations  were  far  more  intimately  and  familiarly 
acquainted  with  each  other  than  they  are  now-  He  married  at 
Rome  an  Italian  lady  of  high  birth  and  large  fortune.  Then  he 
brought  her  home  to  Mellor,  where  straightway  the  garden  front 
was  built  with  all  its  fantastic  and  beautiful  decoration,  the  great 
avenue  was  planted,  pictures  began  to  invade  the  house,  and  a 
musical  library  was  collected  whereof  the  innumerable  faded 
volumes,  bearing  each  of  them  the  entwined  names  of  Richard 
and  Marcella  Boyce,  had  been  during  the  last  few  weeks  mines  of 
delight  and  curiosity  to  the  Marcella  of  to-day. 

The  Italian  wife  bore  her  lord  two  sons,  and  then  in  early  middle 
life  she  died  —  much  loved  and  passionately  mourned.  Her  tomb 
bore  no  long-winded  panegyric.  Her  name  only,  her  parentage  and 
birthplace  —  for  she  was  Italian  to  the  last,  and  her  husband  loved 
her  the  better  for  it  —  the  dates  of  her  birth  and  death,  and  then 
two  lines  from  Dante's  Vita  Nuova. 

Tiie  portrait  of  this  earlier  Marcella  hung  still  in  the  room 
where  her  music-books  survived,  —  a  dark  blurred  picture  by  an 
inferior  hand ;  but  the  Marcella  of  to-day  had  long  since  eagerly 
decided  that  her  own  physique  and  her  father's  were  to  be  traced 
to  its  original,  as  well,  no  doubt,  as  the  artistic  aptitudes  of  both  — 
aptitudes  not  hitherto  conspicuous  in  her  respectable  race. 

Ill  reality,  however,  she  loved  every  one  of  them  —  these  Jaco- 


CHAP.  HI  MARCELLA  29 

bean  and  Georgian  squires  with  their  interminable  epitaplis.  Now, 
as  she  stood  in  the  church,  looking  about  her,  her  flowers  lying 
beside  her  in  a  tumbled  heap  on  the  chancel  step,  cheerfulness, 
delight,  nay,  the  indomitable  pride  and  exultation  of  her  youth, 
came  back  upon  her  in  one  great  lifting  wave.  The  depression 
of  her  father's  repentances  and  trepidations  fell  away ;  she  felt 
herself  in  her  place,  under  the  shelter  of  her  forefathers,  incor- 
porated and  redeemed,  as  it  were,  into  their  guild  of  honour. 

There  were  dithculties  in  her  path,  no  doubt  —  but  she  had  her' 
vantage-ground,  and  would  use  it  for  her  own  profit  and  that  of 
others.  She  had  no  cause  for  shame ;  and  in  these  days  of  the 
developed  individual  the  old  solidarity  of  the  family  has  become 
injustice  and  wrong.  Her  mind  filled  tumiiltuously  with  the 
evidence  these  last  two  years  had  brought  her  of  her  natural 
power  over  men  and  things.  She  knew  perfectly  well  that  she 
could  do  and  dare  what  other  girls  of  her  age  could  never  venture 
—  that  she  had  fascination,  resource,  brain. 

Already,  in  these  few  weeks —  Smiles  played  about  her  lips  as 
she  thought  of  that  quiet  grave  gentleman  of  thirty  she  had  been 
meeting  at  the  Hardens'.  His  grandfather  might  write  what  he 
pleased.  It  did  not  alter  the  fact  that  during  the  last  few^  weeks 
Mr.  Aldous  Raeburn,  clearly  one  of  the  partis  most  coveted,  and 
one  of  the  men  most  observed,  in  the  neighbourhood,  had  taken 
and  shown  a  very  marked  interest  in  Mr.  Boyce's  daughter — all 
the  more  marked  because  of  the  reserved  manner  with  which  it 
had  to  contend. 

No !  whatever  happened,  she  would  carve  her  path,  make  her 
own  way,  and  her  parents'  too.  At  twenty-one,  nothing  looks 
irrevocable.  A  w^oman's  charm,  a  woman's  energy  should  do  it 
all. 

Ay,  and  something  else  too.  She  looked  quickly  round  the 
church,  her  mind  swelling  with  the  sense  of  the  Cravens'  injustice 
and  distrust.  Never  could  she  be  more  conscious  than  here  —  on 
this  very  spot  —  of  mission,  of  an  urging  call  to  the  service  of  man. 
In  front  of  her  was  the  Boyces'  fanrily  pew,  carved  and  becushioned, 
but  behind  it  stretched  bench  after  bench  of  plain  and  humble  oak, 
on  which  the  village  sat  when  it  came  to  church.  Here,  for  the 
first  time,  had  Marcella  been  brought  face  to  face  with  the  agri- 
cultural world  as  it  is  —  no  stage  ruralism,  but  the  bare  fact  in 
one  of  its  most  pitiful  aspects.  Men  of  sixty  and  upwards,  grey 
and  furrowed  like  the  chalk  soil  into  which  they-  had  worked  their 
lives ;  not  old  as  age  goes,  but  already  the  refuse  of  their  genera- 
tion, and  paid  for  at  the  rate  of  refuse ;  with  no  prospect  but  the 
workhouse,  if  the  grave  should  be  delayed,  yet  quiet,  impassive, 
resigned,  now  showing  a  furtive  childish  amusement  if  a  schoolboy 


30  MARCELLA  book  i 

misbehaved,  or  a  doy  strayed  into  chiirch,  now  joining  with  a  stolid 
unconsciousness  in  tlie  tremendous  sayings  of  the  Psahns ;  women 
coarse,  or  worn,  or  hopeless;  girls  and  boys  and  young  children 
already  blanched  and  emaciated  l)eyond  even  the  normal  Londoner 
from  the  effects  of  insanitary  cottages,  bad  water,  and  starvation 
food  —  these  figures  and  ty|3es  had  been  a  ghastly  and  quickening 
revelation  to  Marcella.  In  London  the  agricultural  labourer,  of 
whom  she  had  heard  much,  had  been  to  her  as  a  pawn  in  the 
game  of  discussion.  Here  he  was  in  the  flesh ;  and  she  was  called 
upon  to  live  with  him,  and  not  only  to  talk  about  him.  Under 
circumstances  of  peculiar  responsibility  too.  For  it  was  very  clear 
that  upon  the  ow'nerof  ^Mellor  depended,  and  had  always  depended, 
the  labourer  of  INlellor. 

Well,  she  had  tried  to  live  with  them  ever  since  she  came  —  had 
gone  in  and  out  of  their  cottages  in  flat  horror  and  amazement  at 
them  and  their  lives  and  their  surroundings ;  alternately  pleased 
and  repelled  by  their  cringing ;  now  enjoying  her  position  among 
them  with  the  natural  aristocratic  instinct  of  women,  now  grind- 
ing her  teeth  over  her  father's  and  uncle's  behaviour  and  the  little 
good  she  saw  any  prospect  of  doing  for  her  new  subjects. 

What,  their  friend  and  champion,  and  ultimately  their  redeemer 
too  ?  Well,  and  why  not  ?  Weak  women  have  done  greater  things 
in  the  w^orld.  As  she  stood  on  the  chancel  step,  vowing  herself  to 
these  great  things,  she  was  conscious  of  a  di'amatic  moment  — 
would  not  have  been  sorry,  perhaps,  if  some  admiring  eye  could 
have  seen  and  understood  her. 

But  there  was  a  saving  sincerity  at  the  root  of  her,  and  her 
strained  mood  sank  naturally  into  a  girlish  excitement. 

"  We  shall  see  !  —  We  shall  see !  "  she  said  aloud,  and  was  startled 
to  hear  her  words  quite  plainly  in  the  silent  church.  As  she  spoke 
she  stooped  to  separate  her  flowers  and  see  what  quantities  she  had 
of  each. 

But  while  she  did  so  a  sound  of  distant  voices  made  her  raise 
lierself  again.  She  walked  down  the  church  and  stood  at  the  open 
south  door,  looking  and  waiting.  Before  her  stretched  a  green 
field  path  leading  across  the  park  to  the  village.  The  vicar  and 
his  sister  were  coming  along  it  towards  the  church,  both  flower- 
laden,  and  beside  w^alked  a  tall  man  in  a  brown  shooting  suit,  with 
his  gun  in  his  hand  and  his  dog  beside  him. 

The  excitement  in  ]\Larcella's  eyes  leapt  up  afresh  for  a  moment 
as  she  saw  the  group,  and  then  subsided  into  a  luminous  and  steady 
glow.  She  waited  quietly  for  them,  hardly  responding  to  the 
affectionate  signals  of  the  vicar's  sister ;  but  inwardly  she  was  not 
([uiet  at  all.  For  the  tall  man  in  the  brown  shooting  coat  was  Mr. 
Aldous  llaeburn. 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  31 


CHAPTER   IV 

"  How  kind  of  you !  "  said  tlie  rector's  sister,  enthusiastically ; 
"but  I  thought  you  would  come  and  help  us." 

And  as  Marcella  took  some  of  her  burdens  from  her,  Miss  Har- 
den kissed  Marcella's  cheek  with  a  sort  of  timid  eagerness.  She 
had  fallen  in  love  with  i\Iiss  Boyce  from  the  beginning,  was  now 
just  advanced  to  this  privilege  of  kissing,  and  being  entirely  con- 
vinced that  her  new  friend  possessed  all  virtues  and  all  knowledge, 
found  it  not  difficult  to  hold  that  she  had  been  divinely  sent  to 
siistain  her  brother  and  herself  in  the  disheartening  task  of  civil- 
ising Mellor.  Mary  Harden  was  naturally  a  short,  roiindly  made 
girl,  neither  pretty  nor  plain,  with  grey-blue  eyes,  a  shy  manner, 
and  a  heart  all  goodness.  Her  brother  was  like  unto  her  —  also 
short,  round,  and  full-faced,  with  the  same  attractive  eyes.  Both 
were  singularly  young  in  aspect  —  a  boy  and  girl  j)air.  Both  had 
the  worn,  pinched  look  which  Mrs.  Boyce  complained  of,  and  which, 
indeed,  went  oddly  with  their  whole  physique.  It  was  as  though 
creatures  built  for  a  normal  life  of  easy  give  and  take  with  their 
fellows  had  fallen  upon  some  unfitting  and  jarring  experience. 
One  striking  difference,  indeed,  there  was  between  them,  for  amid 
the  brother's  timidity  and  sweetness  there  lay,  clearly  to  be  felt 
and  seen,  the  consciousness  of  the  priest  —  nascent  and  immature, 
but  already  urging  and  characteristic. 

Only  one  face  of  the  three  showed  any  other  emotion  than  quick 
pleasirre  at  the  sight  of  Marcella  Boyce.  Aldous  Raeburn  was 
clearly  embarrassed  thereby.  Indeed,  as  he  laid  down  his  gun  out- 
side the  low  churchyard  wall,  while  Marcella  and  the  Hardens  were 
greeting,  that  generally  self-possessed  though  modest  person  was 
conscious  of  a  quite  disabling  perturbation  of  mind.  Why  in  the 
name  of  all  good  manners  and  decency  had  he  allowed  himself  to 
be  discovered  in  shooting  trim,  on  that  particular  morning,  by  Mr. 
Boyce's  daughter  on  her  father's  land,  and  within  a  stone's  throw 
of  her  father's  house  ?  Was  he  not  perfectly  well  aware  of  the 
curt  note  which  his  grandfather  had  that  moi'uing  despatched  to 
the  new  owner  of  ^Mellor  ?  Had  he  not  ineffectually  tried  to  delay 
execution  the  night  before,  thereby  puzzling  and  half-offending  his 
grandfather?  Had  not  the  incident  weighed  on  him  ever  since, 
wounding  an  admiration  and  sympathy  which  seemed  to  have  stolen 
upon  him  in  the  dark,  during  these  few  weeks'  since  he  had  made 
Miss  Boyce's  acquaintance,  so  strong  and  startling  did  he  all  in  a 
moment  feel  them  to  be  ? 

And  then  to  intrude  upon  her  thus,  out  of  nothing  apparently 
but  sheer  moth-like  incapacity  to  keep  away!     The  church  footpath 


32  MARCELLA  book  i 

indeed  was  public  property,  and  Miss  Harden's  burdens  had  cried 
aloud  to  any  passing  male  to  help  her.  But  why  in  this  neighbour- 
hood at  all?  —  why  not  rather  on  the  other  side  of  the  county? 
He  could  have  scoui'ged  himself  on  the  spot  for  an  unpardonable 
breach  of  manners  and  feeling. 

However,  Miss  Boyce  certainly  made  no  sign.  She  received  him 
without  any  empressement,  but  also  without  the  smallest  symptom 
of  offence.  They  all  moved  into  the  church  together,  Mr.  Raeburn 
caiTying  a  vast  bundle  of  ivy  and  fern,  the  rector  and  his  sister 
laden  with  closely-packed  baskets  of  cut  flowers.  Everything  was 
laid  down  on  the  chancel  steps  beside  Marcella's  contribution,  and 
then  the  Hardens  began  to  plan  out  operations.  Miss  Harden  ran 
over  on  her  fingers  the  contributions  which  had  been  sent  in  to  the 
rectory,  or  were  presently  coming  over  to  the  church  in  a  hand- 
cart. "  Lord  Maxwell  has  sent  the  most  beautiful  pots  for  the  chan- 
cel," she  said,  with  a  grateful  look  at  young  Raeburn.  "  It  will  be 
quite  a  show."  To  which  the  young  rector  assented  warmly.  It 
was  very  good,  indeed,  of  Lord  Maxwell  to  remember  them  always 
so  liberally  at  times  like  these,  when  they  had  so  little  direct  claim 
upon  him.  They  were  not  his  chm'ch  or  his  parish,  but  he  never 
forgot  them  all  the  same,  and  Mellor  was  grateful.  The  rector 
had  all  his  sister's  gentle  effusiveness,  but  a  professional  dignity 
besides,  even  in  his  thanks,  which  made  itself  felt 

Marcella  flushed  as  he  was  speaking. 

"  I  went  to  see  what  I  could  get  in  the  way  of  greenhouse  things," 
she  said  in  a  sudden  proud  voice.  "  But  we  have  nothing.  There 
are  the  houses,  but  there  is  nothing  in  them.  But  you  shall  have 
all  our  out-of-door  flowers,  and  I  think  a  good  deal  might  be  done 
with  autumn  leaves  and  wild  things  if  you  will  let  me  try  " 

A  speech  which  brought  a  flush  to  Mr.  Raeburn 's  cheek  as  he 
stood  in  the  background,  and  led  INIary  Harden  into  an  eager  ask- 
ing of  Marcella's  counsels,  and  an  eager  praising  of  her  flowers. 

Aldous  Raeburn  said  nothing,  but  his  discomfort  increased  with 
every  moment.  Why  had  his  grandfather  been  so  officious  in  this 
matter  of  the  flowers?  All  very  well  when  Mellor  was  empty,  or 
in  the  days  of  a  miser  and  eccentric,  without  womankind,  like 
Robert  Boyce.  But  now — the  act  began  to  seem  to  him  offensive, 
a  fresh  affront  offered  to  an  unprotected  girl,  whose  quivering  sen- 
sitive look  as  she  stood  talking  to  the  Hardens  touched  him  pro- 
foundly. Mellor  church  might  almost  be  regarded  as  the  Boyces' 
private  chapel,  so  bound  up  was  it  with  the  family  and  the  house. 
He  realised  painfully  that  he  ought  to  be  gone  —  yet  could  not  tear 
himself  away.  Her  passionate  willingness  to  spend  herself  for  the 
place  and  people  she  had  made  her  own  at  first  sight,  checked 
every  now  and  then  by  a  proud  and  sore  reserve  —  it  was  too 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  33 

pretty,  too  sad.  It  stung  and  spurred  him  as  he  watched  her; 
one  moment  his  foot  moved  for  departure,  the  next  he  was  resolv- 
ing that  somehow  or  other  he  must  make  speech  with  her  —  excuse 
— explain.  Ridiculous!  How  was  it  possible  that  he  should  do 
either ! 

He  had  met  lier — perhaps  had  tried  to  meet  her  —  tolerably 
often  since  their  first  chance  encounter  weeks  ago  in  the  vicarage 
drawing-room.  All  through  there  had  been  on  his  side  the  uncom- 
fortable knowledge  of  his  grandfather's  antipathy  to  Richard 
Boyce,  and  of  the  social  steps  to  which  that  antipathy  would 
inevitably  lead.  But  Miss  Boyce  had  never  shown  the  smallest 
consciousness,  so  far,  of  anything  untoward  or  unusual  in  her 
position.  She  had  been  clearly  taken  up  with  the  interest  and 
pleasure  of  this  new  spectacle  upon  which  she  had  entered.  The 
old  house,  its  associations,  its  history,  the  beautiful  country  in 
which  it  lay,  the  speech  and  characteristics  of  rural  labour  as 
compared  with  that  of  the  town,  —  he  had  heard  her  talk  of  all 
these  things  with  a  freshness,  a  human  sympathy,  a  freedom  from 
conventional  phrase,  and,  no  doubt,  a  touch  of  egotism  and 
extravagance,  which  rivetted  attention.  The  egotism  and  extrav- 
agance, however,  after  a  first  moment  of  critical  discomfort  on  his 
part,  had  not  in  the  end  repelled  him  at  all.  The  girl's  vivid 
beauty  glorified  them;  made  them  seem  to  him  a  mere  special 
fulness  of  life.  So  that  in  his  new  preoccupation  with  herself, 
and  by  contact  with  her  frank  self-confidence,  he  had  almost  for- 
gotten her  position,  and  his  own  indirect  relation  to  it.  Then  had 
come  that  unlucky  note  from  Mellor;  his  grandfather's  prompt 
reply  to  it ;  his  own  ineffective  protest ;  and  now  this  tongue- 
tiedness — this  clumsy  intrusion  —  which  she  must  feel  to  be  an 
indelicacy  — an  outrage. 

Suddenly  he  heard  Miss  Harden  saying,  with  penitent  emphasis, 
"  I  am  stupid  !  I  have  left  the  scissors  and  the  wire  on  the  table 
at  home ;  we  can't  get  on  without  them ;  it  is  really  too  bad  of  me." 

"I  will  go  for  them,"  said  Marcella,  promptly.  "Here  is  the 
hand-cart  just  arrived  and  some  people  come  to  help;  you  can't 
be  spared.     I  will  be  back  directly." 

And,  gathering  up  her  black  skirt  in  a  slim  white  hand,  she 
sped  down  the  church,  and  was  out  of  the  south  door  before  the 
Hardens  had  time  to  protest,  or  Aldous  Raeburn  understood  what 
she  was  doing. 

A  vexed  word  from  Miss  Harden  enlightened  him,  and  he  went 
after  the  fugitive,  overtaking  her  just  where  his  gun  and  dog  lay, 
outside  the  churchyard. 

"Let  me  go.  Miss  Boyce,"  he  said,  as  he  caught  her  up.  "My 
dog  and  I  will  run  there  and  back." 


34  MARCELLA  book  i 

But  Marcella  hardly  looked  at  him,  or  paused. 

"  Oh  no !  "  she  said  quickly,  "  I  shovild  like  the  walk." 

He  hesitated ;  then,  with  a  flush  which  altered  his  visually  quiet, 
self-contained  expression,  he  moved  on  beside  her. 

"Allow  me  to  go  with  you  then.  You  are  sure  to  find  fresh 
loads  to  bring  back.  If  it's  like  our  harvest  festival,  the  things 
keep  dropping  in  all  day." 

Marcella's  eyes  were  still  on  the  ground. 

"  I  thought  you  were  on  your  way  to  shoot,  Mr.  Raeburn?  '' 

"  So  I  was,  but  there  is  no  hurry ;  if  I  can  be  useful.  Both  the 
birds  and  the  keej^er  can  wait." 

"  Where  are  you  going?" 

"To  some  outlying  fields  of  ours  on  the  Windmill  Hill  There 
is  a  tenant  there  who  wants  to  see  me.  He  is  a  prosy  person  with 
a  host  of  grievances.  I  took  my  gun  as  a  possible  means  of  escape 
from  him." 

"  Windmill  Hill '?  I  know  the  name.  Oh !  I  remember"":  it  was 
there  —  my  father  has  just  been  telling  me  —  that  your  father  and 
he  shot  the  j^air  of  kestrels,  when  they  were  boys  together. ' 

Her  tone  was  quite  light,  but  somehow  it  had  an  accent,  an 
emphasis,  which  made  Aldous  Raeburn  supremely  uncomfortable. 
In  his  disquiet,  he  thought  of  various  things  to  say ;  but  he  was 
not  ready,  nor  naturally  effusive ;  the  turn  of  them  did  not  please 
him ;  and  he  remained  silent. 

Meantime  Marcella's  heart  was  beating  fast.  She  was  medi- 
tating a  coup. 

"  Mr.  Raeburn  !  " 

"Yes!" 

"  Will  you  think  me  a  very,  extraordinary  person  if  I  ask  you 
a  question?  Your  father  and  mine  were  great  friends,  weren't 
they,  as  boys?  —  your  family  and  mine  were  friends,  altogether?" 

"  I  believe  so  —  I  have  always  heard  so,"  said  her  companion, 
flushing  still  redder. 

"  You  knew  Uncle  Robert  —  Lord  Maxwell  did  ?  " 

"Yes  —  as  much  as  anybody  knew  liim  —  but  —  " 

"  Oh,  I  know  :  he  shut  himself  up  and  hated  his  neighbours. 
Still  you  knew  him,  and  papa  and  your  father  were  boys  together. 
Well  then,  if  you  won't  mind  telling  me  —  I  know  it's  bold  to  ask, 
but  I  have  reasons  —  why  does  Lord  Maxwell  write  to  papa  in  the 
third  person,  and  why  has  your  aunt.  Miss  Raeburn,  never  found 
time  in  all  these  weeks  to  call  on  mamma  ?  " 

She  turned  and  faced  him,  her  splendid  eyes  one  challenge. 
The  glow  and  fire  of  the  whole  gesture  —  the  daring  of  it,  and  yet 
the  suggestion  of  womanish  weakness  in  the  hand  which  trenrbled 
against  her  dress  and  in  the  twitching  lip  —  if  it  had  been  fine 


CHAP.    IV 


MAR  CELL  A  35 


acting,  it  could  not  have  been  more  complete.  And,  in  a  sense, 
acting  there  was  in  it.  Marcella's  emotions  were  real,  but  her 
mind  seldom  deserted  her.  One  halt"  of  her  was  impulsive  and 
passionate ;  the  other  half  looked  on  and  put  in  finishing  touches. 

Acting  or  no,  the  surprise  of  her  outburst  swept  the  man  beside 
lier  oft"  his  feet.  He  found  himself  floundering  in  a  sea  of  excuses 
—  not  for  his  i-elations,  but  for  himself.  He  ought  never  to  have 
intruded ;  it  was  odious,  unpardonable ;  he  had  no  business  what- 
ever to  put  himself  in  her  way !  AVould  she  please  understand 
that  it  was  an  accident  ?  It  should  not  happen  again.  He  quite 
understood  that  she  could  not  regard  him  with  friendliness.  And 
so  on.     He  had  never  so  lost  his  self-possession. 

Meanwhile  INTarcella's  bi-ows  contracted.  She  took  his  excuses 
as  a  fresh  offence 

"  You  mean,  I  suppose,  that  T  have  no  right  to  ask  such  ques- 
tions !  "  she  cried  ;  "  that  I  am  not  behaving  like  a  lady  —  as  one 
of  your  relations  would  V  Well,  I  dare  say !  I  was  not  brought  up 
like  that.  I  was  not  brought  up  at  all ;  T  have  had  to  make  my- 
self. So  you  must  avoid  me  if  you  like.  Of  course  you  will.  But 
I  resolved  there  —  in  the  church  —  that  I  would  make  just  one 
effort,  before  everything  crystallises,  to  break  through.  If  we 
must  live  on  here  hating  our  neighbours  and  being  cut  by  them, 
I  thought  I  would  just  ask  you  why,  first.  There  is  no  one  else 
to  ask.  Hardly  anybody  has  called,  except  the  Hardens,  and  a 
few  new  people  that  don't  matter.  And  /  have  nothing  to  be 
ashamed  of,"  said  the  girl,  passionately,  "  nor  has  mamma.  Papa, 
I  suppose,  did  some  bad  things  long  ago.  I  have  never  known  —  I 
don't  know  now — what  they  were.  But  I  should  like  to  under- 
stand.    Is  everybody  going  to  cut  us  because  of  that  ?  " 

With  a  great  effort  Aldous  Raeburn  pulled  himself  together, 
certain  fine  instincts  both  of  race  and  conduct  coming  to  his 
help.  He  met  her  excited  look  by  one  which  had  both  dignity 
and  friendliness. 

"  I  will  tell  you  what  I  can,  Miss  Boyce.  If  you  ask  me,  it  is 
right  I  should.  You  must  forgive  me  if  I  say  anything  that  hurts 
you.  I  will  try  not  —  I  will  try  not !  "  he  repeated  earnestly.  "  In 
the  first  place,  I  know  hardly  anything  in  detail.  I  do  not  remem- 
ber that  I  have  ever  wished  to  know.  But  I  gather  that  some  years 
ago  —  when  I  was  still  a  lad  —  something  in  Mr.  Boyce's  life  — 
some  financial  matters,  I  believe  —  during  the  time  that  he  was 
member  of  Parliament,  made  a  scandal,  and  especially  among  his 
family  and  old  friends.  It  was  the  effect  upon  his  old  father,  I 
think,  who,  as  you  know,  died  soon  afterwards  —  " 

Marcella  started. 

"I  didn't  know,"  she  said  quickly- 


36  MARCELLA  book  i 

Aldous  Raebunrs  distress  grew. 

"I  really  oughtn't  to  speak  of  these  things,"  he  said,  "for  I 
don't  know  them  accurately  But  T  want  to  answer  what  you 
said  —  I  do  indeed.  It  was  that,  I  think,  chiefly.  Everybody 
here  respected  and  loved  your  grandfather  —  my  grandf atlier  did 
—  and  there  was  great  feeling  for  him  —  " 

"  I  see  !  I  see  !  "  said  Marcella,  her  chest  heaving ;  "  and  against 
papa." 

She  walked  on  quickly,  hardly  seeing  where  she  was  going,  her 
eyes  dim  with  tears.  There  was  a  wretched  pause.  Then  Aldous 
Raeburn  broke  out  — 

"  But  after  all  it  is  very  long  ago.  And  there  may  have  been 
some  harsh  judgment.  My  grandfather  may  have  been  misin- 
formed as  to  some  of  the  facts.     And  I  —  " 

He  hesitated,  struck  with  the  awkwardness  of  what  he  was  going 
to  say.     But  Marcella  understood  him. 

"  And  you  will  try  and  make  him  alter  his  mind  ? "  she  said, 
not  imgratefully,  but  still  with  a  touch  of  sarcasm  in  her  tone. 
"No,  Mr.  Raeburn,  I  don't  think  that  will  succeed." 

They  walked  on  in  silence  for  a  little  while.  At  last  he  said, 
turning  upon  her  a  face  in  which  she  could  not  but  see  the  true 
feeling  of  a  just  and  kindly  man  — 

"  I  meant  that  if  my  grandfather  could  be  led  to  express  himself 
in  a  way  which  Mr.  Boyce  could  accept,  even  if  there  were  no 
great  friendship  as  there  used  to  be,  there  might  be  something- 
better  than  this  —  this,  which  —  which — is  so  painful.  And  any- 
way, Miss  Boyce,  whatever  happens,  will  you  let  me  say  this  once, 
that  there  is  no  word,  no  feeling  in  this  neighbourhood  —  how 
could  there  be?  —  towards  you  and  your  mother,  but  one  of  respect 
and  admiration?  Do  believe  that,  even  if  you  feel  that  you  can 
never  be  friendly  towards  me  and  mine  again  —  or  forget  the 
things  I  have  said ! " 

"  Respect  and  admiration !  "  said  Marcella,  wondering,  and  still 
scornful.  "  Pity,  perhaps.  There  might  be  that.  But  anywaj' 
mamma  goes  with  papa.  She  always  has  done.  She  al\^\ays  will. 
So  shall  I,  of  course.  But  I  am  sorry  —  Ji or ribl y  sove  and  sorry! 
I  was  so  delighted  to  come  here.  I  have  been  very  little  at  home, 
and  understood  hardly  anything  about  this  worry  —  not  how 
serioiis  it  was,  nor  what  it  meant.  Oh!  I  am  sorry  —  there  was 
so  much  I  wanted  to  do  here  —  if  anybody  could  only  uuder- 
.stand  what  it  means  to  me  to  come  to  tliis  place !  " 

They  had  reached  the  brow  of  a  little  rising  ground.  Just  below 
them,  beyond  a  stubble  field  in  which  there  were  a  few  bent  forms 
of  gleaners,  lay  the  small  scattered  village,  hardly  seen  amid  its 
trees,  the  curls  of  its  blue  smoke  ascending  steadily  on  this  calm 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  37 

September  morning  against  a  great  belt  of  distant  beechwood 
which  begirt  the  hamlet  and  the  common  along  which  it  lay. 
The  stubble  field  was  a  feast  of  shade  and  tint,  of  apricots  and 
golds  shot  with  the  subtlest  purples  and  browns ;  the  flame  of  the 
wild-cherry  leaf  and  the  deeper  crimson  of  the  haws  made  every 
hedge  a  wonder ;  the  apples  gleamed  in  the  cottage  garden ;  and 
a  cloudless  sun  poured  down  »n  field  and  hedge,  and  on  the  half- 
hidden  medley  of  tiled  roofs,  sharp  gables,  and  jutting  dormers 
which  made  the  village. 

Instinctively  both  stopped.  Marcella  locked  her  hands  behind 
her  in  a  gesture  familiar  to  her  in  moments  of  excitement ;  the 
light  wind  blew  back  her  dress  in  soft,  eddying  folds ;  for  the 
moment,  in  her  tall  grace,  she  had  the  air  of  some  young  Victory 
poised  upon  a  height,  till  you  looked  at  her  face,  which  was,  indeed, 
not  exultant  at  all,  but  tragic,  extravagantly  tragic,  as  Aldous 
Raeburn,  in  his  English  reserve,  would  perhaps  have  thought  in 
the  case  of  any  woman  with  tqijner  eyes  and  a  less  winning  mouth. 

"I  don't  want  to  talk  about  myself,"  she  began.  "Bu.t  you 
know,  Mr.  Raeburn  —  you  must  know  —  what  a  state  of  things 
there  is  here  —  you  know  what  a  disgrace  that  village  is.  Oh!  one 
reads  books,  but  I  never  thought  peoj)le  could  actually  live  like 
that  —  here  in  the  wide  country,  with  room  for  all.  It  makes  me 
lie  awake  at  night.  We  are  not  rich  —  we  are  very  poor  —  the 
house  is  all  out  of  repair,  and  the  estate,  as  of  course  you  know,  is 
in  a  wretched  condition.  But  when  I  see  these  cottages,  and  the 
water,  and  the  children,  I  ask  what  right  we  have  to  anything  we 
get.  I  had  some  friends  in  London  who  were  Socialists,  and  I 
followed  and  agreed  with  them,  but  here  one  sees !  Yes,  indeed  !  — 
it  is  too  great  a  risk  to  let  the  individual  alone  when  all  these  lives 
depend  upon  him.  Uncle  Robert  was  an  eccentric  and  a  miser ; 
and  look  at  the  death-rate  in  the  village  —  look  at  the  children  ; 
you  can  see  how  it  has  crushed  the  Hardens  already.  No,  we  have 
no  right  to  it !  —  it  ought  to  be  taken  from  us ;  some  day  it  will  be 
taken  from  us  !  " 

Aldous  Raeburn  smiled,  and  was  himself  again.  A  woman's 
speculations  were  easier  to  deal  with  than  a  woman's  distress. 

"  It  is  not  so  hopeless  as  that,  I  think,"  he  said  kindly.  "  The 
Mellor  cottages  are  in  a  bad  state  certainly.  But  you  have  no  idea 
how  soon  a  little  energy  and  money  and  thought  sets  things  to 
rights." 

"But  we  have  no  money  !  "  cried  Marcella.  "  And  if  he  is  mis- 
erable here,  my  father  will  have  no  energy  to  do  anji;hing.  He 
will  not  care  what  happens.  He  will  defy  everybody,  and  just 
spend  what  he  has  on  himself.  And  it  will  make  me  wretched  — 
ivretched.     Look  at  that  cottage  to  the  right,  Mr.  Raebui'n.     It  is 


38  MARCELLA  book  i 

Jim  Kurd's  —  a  man  who  works  mainly  on  the  Church  Farm, 
when  he  is  in  work.  But  he  is  deformed,  and  not  so  strong  as 
others.  The  farmers  too  seem  to  be  cutting  down  labour  every- 
where —  of  course  I  don't  understand  —  I  am  so  new  to  it.  Hurd 
and  his  family  had  an  o^y/wZ  winter,  last  winter  —  hardly  kept  body 
and  soul  together.  And  now  he  is  out  of  work  alreadj^  —  the  man 
at  the  Church  Farm  turned  him  off  directly  after  harvest.  He 
sees  no  prospect  of  getting  work  by  the  winter.  He  spends  his 
days  tramping  to  look  for  it;  but  nothing  turns  up.  Last  winter 
they  parted  with  all  they  could  sell.  This  winter  it  must  be  the 
workhouse!  IVs  heart-breaking.  And  he  has  a  mind ;  hecan/eeZ.' 
I  lend  him  the  Labour  paper  I  take  in,  and  get  him  to  talk.  He 
has  more  education  than  most,  and  oh !  the  bitterness  at  the  bottom 
of  him.  But  not  against  persons  —  individuals.  It  is  like  a  sort 
of  blind  patience  when  you  come  to  that  —  they  make  excuses  even 
for  Uncle  Robert,  to  whom  they  have  jpaid  rent  all  these  years  for 
a  cottage  which  is  a  crime  —  yes,  a  crime  !  The  woman  must  have 
been  such  a  pretty  creature  —  and  refined  too.  She  is  consump- 
tive, of  course — what  else  could  you  expect  with  that  cottage  and 
that  food  ?  So  is  the  eldest  boy  —  a  little  white  atomy !  And 
the  other  children.  Talk  of  London  — I  never  saw  such  sickly 
objects  as  there  are  in  this  village.  Twelve  shillings  a  week,  and 
work  about  half  the  year  !  Oh  !  they  ought  to  hate  us  !  —  I  try  to 
make  them,"  cried  Marcella,  her  eyes  gleaming.  "  They  ought  to 
hate  all  of  us  landowners,  and  the  whole  wicked  system.  It  keeps 
them  from  the  land  which  they  ought  to  be  sharing  with  us ;  it 
makes  one  man  master,  instead  of  all  men  brothers.  And  who 
is  fit  to  be  master  ?  Which  of  us  ?  Everybody  is  so  ready  to 
take  the  charge  of  other  people's  lives,  and  then  look  at  the 
result !  " 

"  Well,  the  result,  even  in  rural  England,  is  not  always  so  bad," 
said  Aldous  Raeburn,  smiling  a  little,  but  more  coldly.  Marcella, 
glancing  at  him,  understood  in  a  moment  that  she  had  roused  a 
certain  family  and  class  pride  in  him  —  a  jiride  which  was  not 
going  to  assert  itself,  but  none  the  less  implied  the  sudden  open- 
ing of  a  gulf  between  herself  and  him.  In  an  instant  her  quick 
imagination  realised  herself  as  the  daughter  and  niece  of  two  dis- 
credited members  of  a  great  class.  When  she  attacked  the  class, 
or  the  system,  the  man  beside  her  —  any  man  in  similar  circum- 
stances—  must  naturally  think:  "Ah,  well,  poor  girl  —  Dick  Boyce's 
daughter — what  can  you  expect?"  Whereas  —  Aldous  Raeburn! 
—  she  thought  of  the  dignity  of  the  jMaxwell  name,  of  the  width 
of  the  Maxwell  possessions,  balanced  only  by  the  high  reputation 
of  the  family  for  honourable,  just  and  Christian  living,  whether  as 
amongst  themselves  or  towards  their  neighbours  and  dependents 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  39 

A  shiver  o±  passionate  vanity,  wrath,  and  longing  passed  through 
her  as  her  tall  frame  stiifened. 

"  There  are  model  squires,  of  course,"  she  said  slowly,  striving  at 
least  for  a  personal  dignity  which  should  match  his.  "  There  are 
plenty  of  landowners  who  do  their  duty  as  they  understand  it  — 
no  one  denies  that.  But  that  does  not  affect  the  system;  the 
grandson  of  the  best  man  may  be  the  worst,  but  his  one-man 
power  remains  the  same.  No!  the  time  has  come  for  a  wider 
basis.  Paternal  government  and  charity  were  very  well  in  their 
way  —  democratic  self-government  will  manage  to  do  without 
them ! '' 

She  flung  him  a  gay,  quivering,  defiant  look.  It  delighted  her 
to  pit  these  wide  and  threatening  generalisations  against  tlie  ]\Iax- 
well  power  —  to  show  the  heir  of  it  that  she  at  least — father  or  no 
father  —  was  no  hereditary  subject  of  his,  and  bound  to  no  blind 
admiration  of  the  Maxwell  methods  and  position. 

Aldous  Raeburn  took  her  onslaught  very  calmly,  smiling  frankly 
back  at  her  indeed  all  the  time.  Miss  Boyce's  opinions  could 
hardly  matter  to  him  intellectually,  whatever  charm  and  stimulus 
he  might  find  in  her  talk.  This  subject  of  the  duties,  rights,  and 
prospects  of  his  class  went,  as  it  hajipened,  very  deep  with  him  — 
too  deep  for  chance  discussion.  What  she  said,  if  he  ever  stopped 
to  think  of  it  in  itself,  seemed  to  him  a  compound  of  elements 
derived  partly  from  her  personal  history,  partly  from  the  random 
opinions  that  young  people  of  a  generous  type  pick  up  from  news- 
pajiers  and  magazines.  She  had  touched  his  famil}^  pride  for  an 
instant;  but  only  for  an  instant.  What  he  was  abidingly  con- 
scious of,  was  of  a  beautiful  wild  creature  struggling  with  diffi- 
culties in  which  he  was  somehow  himself  concerned,  and  out  of 
which,  in  some  way  or  other,  he  was  becoming  more  and  more 
determined  —  absurdly  determined  —  to  help  her. 

"Oh!  no  doubt  tiie  world  will  do  very  well  without  us  some 
day,"  he  said  lightly,  in  answer  to  her  tirade;  "no  one  is  indis- 
pensable. But  are  you  so  sui'e,  Miss  Boyce,  you  believe  in  your 
own  creed?  I  thought  I  had  observed  —  pardon  me  for  saying  it 
—  on  the  two  or  three  occasions  we  have  met,  some  degenerate 
signs  of  individualism?  You  take  pleasure  in  the  old  place,  you 
say;  you  were  delighted  to  come  and  live  where  your  ancestors 
lived  before  you;  you  are  full  of  desires  to  pull  these  poor  people 
out  of  the  mire  in  your  own  way.  No !  I  don't  feel  that  you  are 
thoroughgoing ! " 

Marcella  paused  a  frowning  moment,  then  broke  suddenly  into  a 
delightful  laugh  —  a  laugh  of  humorous  confession,  which  changed 
her  whole  look  and  mood. 

"  Is  that  all  you  have  noticed  ?     If  you  wish  to  know,  Mr.  Rae- 


40  MARCELLA  book  i 

burn,  I  love  the  labourers  for  touching  then-  hats  to  me.  I  love 
the  school  children  for  bobbing  to  ine.  I  love  my  veiy  self — ridic- 
ulous as  you  may  think  it  —  for  being  INIiss  Boyce  of  Mellor!  " 

"Don't  say  things  like  that,  please !  "  he  interrupted;  "I  think  I 
have  not  deserved  them." 

His  tone  made  her  repent  her  gibe,  "  No,  indeed,  you  have  been 
most  kind  to  me,"  she  cried.  "I  don't  know  how  it  is.  I  am 
bitter  and  personal  in  a  moment  —  when  I  don't  mean  to  be. 
Yes  !  you  are  quite  right.  I  am  proud  of  it  all.  If  nobody  comes 
to  see  us,  and  we  are  left  all  alone  out  in  the  cold,  I  shall  still  have 
room  enough  to  be  proud  in  —  proud  of  the  old  house  and  our  few 
bits  of  pictures,  and  the  family  papers,  and  the  beeches !  How 
absurd  it  would  seem  to  other  people,  who  have  so  much  more! 
But  I  have  had  so  little  —  so  little !"  Her  voice  had  a  hungry  lin- 
gering note.  "  And  as  for  the  people,  yes,  I  am  proud  too  that  they 
like  me,  and  tliat  already  I  can  influence  them.  Oh,  I  will  do  my 
best  for  them,  my  very  best!  But  it  will  be  hard,  very  hard,  if 
there  is  no  one  to  help  me  1  " 

She  heaved  a  long  sigh.  In  spite  of  the  words,  what  she  had 
said  did  not  seem  to  be  an  appeal  for  his  pity  Rather  there  was 
in  it  a  sweet  self-dedicating  note  as  of  one  going  sadly  alone  to  a 
painful  task,  a  note  which  once  more  left  Aldous  Raeburn's  self- 
restraint  tottering.  She  was  walking  gently  beside  him,  her  pretty 
dress  trailing  lightly  over  the  dry  stubble,  her  hand  in  its  white 
niffles  hanging  so  close  beside  him — after  all  her  prophetess  airs  a 
pensive  womanly  thing,  that  must  surely  hear  how  his  strong  man's 
heart  was  beginning  to  beat ! 

He  bent  over  to  her. 

"  Don't  talk  of  there  being  no  one  to  help  !  There  may  be  many 
ways  out  of  present  difficulties.  Meanwhile,  however  things  go, 
could  you  be  large-minded  enough  to  count  one  person  here  your 
friend  ?  " 

She  looked  up  at  him  Tall  as  she  was,  he  was  taller — she 
liked  that ;  she  liked  too  the  quiet  cautious  strength  of  his  English 
expression  and  bearing.  She  did  not  think  him  handsome,  and 
she  was  conscious  of  no  thrill.  But  inwardly  her  quick  dramatis- 
ing imagination  was  already  constructing  her  own  future  and  his. 
The  ambition  to  rule  leapt  in  her,  and  the  delight  in  conquest.  It 
was  with  a  delicious  sense  of  her  own  power,  and  of  the  general 
fulness  of  her  new  life,  that  she  said,  "  I  am  large-minded  enough ! 
You  have  been  very  kind,  and  I  have  been  very  wild  and  indiscreet. 
But  I  don't  regret :  I  am  sure,  if  you  can  help  me,  you  will  '" 

There  was  a  little  pause.  They  were  standing  at  the  last  gate 
before  the  miry  village  road  began,  and  almost  in  sight  of  the 
little  vicarage.     Aldous  Raeburn,  with  his  hand  on  the  gate,  sud- 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  41 

deuly  gathered  a  spray  of  travellers'-joy  out  of  the  hedge  beside 
him. 

"That  was  a  promise,  I  thiiik,'aiid  I  keep  the  ])ledge  of  it,"  he 
said,  and  with  a  smile  put  the  cluster  of  white  seed-tufts  and  green 
leaves  into  one  of  the  pockets  of  his  shooting  jacket. 

"Oh,  don't  tie  me  down  !  "  said  Marcella,  laughing,  but  flushing 
also.  "  And  don't  you  think,  Mr.  Raeburn,  that  you  might  open 
that  gate?  At  least,  we  can't  get  the  scissors  and  the  wire  unless 
you  do." 

CHAPTER  V 

The  autumn  evening  was  far  advanced  when  Aldous  Raeburn, 
after  his  day's  shooting,  passed  again  by  the  gates  of  Mellor  Park 
on  his  road  home.  He  glanced  up  the  ill-kept  drive,  with  its  fine 
overhanging  limes,  caught  a  glimpse  to  the  left  of  the  little  church, 
and  to  the  right,  of  the  long  eastern  front  of  the  house ;  lingered  a 
moment  to  watch  the  sunset  light  streaming  through  the  level 
branches  of  two  distant  cedars,  standing  black  and  sharp  against 
the  fiery  west,  and  then  walked  briskly  forwards  in  the  mood 
of  a  man  going  as  fast  as  may  be  to  an  appointment  he  both 
desires  and  dreads. 

He  had  given  his  gun  to  the  keeper,  who  had  already  sped  far 
ahead  of  him,  in  the  shooting-cart  which  his  master  had  declined. 
His  dog,  a  black  retriever,  was  at  his  heels,  and  both  dog  and  man 
were  somewhat  weary  and  stiff  with  exercise.  But  for  the  privi- 
lege of  solitude,  Aldous  Raeburn  would  at  that  moment  have  faced 
a  good  deal  more  than  the  two  miles  of  extra  walking  which  now 
lay  between  him  and  Maxwell  Court. 

About  him,  as  he  trudged  on,  lay  a  beautiful  world  of  English 
woodland.  After  he  had  passed  through  the  hamlet  of  Mellor, 
with  its  three-cornered  piece  of  open  common,  and  its  patches  of 
arable  —  representing  the  original  forest-clearing  made  centuries 
ago  by  the  primitive  fathers  of  the  village  in  this  corner  of  the 
Chiltern  uplands  —  the  beech  woods  closed  thickly  round  him. 
Beech  woods  of  all  kinds — from  forest  slopes,  where  majestic 
trees,  grey  and  soaring  pillars  of  the  woodland  roof,  stood  in 
stately  isolation  on  the  dead-leaf  carpet  woven  by  the  years 
about  their  carved  and  polished  bases,  to  the  close  plantations 
of  young  trees,  where  the  saplings  crowded  on  each  other,  and 
here  and  there  amid  the  airless  tangle  of  leaf  and  branch 
some  long  pheasant-drive,  cut  straight  through  the  green  heart  of 
the  wood,  refreshed  the  seeking  eye  with  its  arched  and  far- 
receding  path.  Two  or  three  times  on  his  walk  Aldous  heard 
from  far  within   the   trees  the  sounds  of   hatchet  and   turner's 


42  MARCELLA  book  i 

wlieel,  -wliicli  told  liiiii  he  was  passing  one  of  the  wood-cutter's 
Imts  that  in  the  hilly  parts  of  this  distiict  supply  the  first  simple 
steps  of  the  chairinaking  industry,  carried  on  in  the  little  factory 
towns  of  the  more  poj^ulous  valleys.  And  two  or  three  times  also 
he  passed  a  string  of  the  great  timber  carts  which  haunt  the 
Chiltern  lanes;  the  patient  team  of  brown  horses  straining  at  the" 
weight  behind  them,  the  vast  prostrate  trunks  rattling  in  their 
chains,  and  the  smoke  from  the  carters'  pipes  rising  slowly  into 
the  damp  sunset  air.  But  for  the  most  part  the  road  along  which 
he  walked  was  utterly  forsaken  of  human  kind.  Nor  were  there 
any  signs  of  habitation  —  no  cottages,  no  farms.  He  was  scarcely 
more  than  thirty  miles  from  London ;  yet  in  this  solemn  evening 
glow  it  would  have  been  hardly  possible  to  find  a  remoter,  lonelier 
nature  than  that  through  which  he  was  passing. 

And  presently  the  solitude  took  a  grander  note.  lie  was  near- 
ing  the  edge  of  the  high  upland  along  which  he  had  been  walking. 
In  front  of  him  the  long  road  with  its  gleaming  pools  bent  sharply 
to  the  left,  showing  pale  and  distinct  against  a  darkening  heaven 
and  the  wide  grey  fields  which  had  now,  on  one  side  of  his  path, 
replaced  the  serried  growi:h  of  young  plantations.  Night  was  fast 
"advancing  from  south  and  east  over  the  upland.  But  straight  in 
front  of  him  and  on  his  right,  the  forest  trees,  still  flooded  with 
sunset,  fell  in  sharp  steeps  towards  the  plain.  Through  their 
straight  stems  glowed  the  blues  and  purples  of  that  lower  world; 
and  when  the  slopes  broke  and  opened  here  and  ther^,  above  the 
rounded  masses  of  their  red  and  golden  leaf  the  level  distances  of 
the  plain  could  be  seen  stretching  away,  illimitable  in  the  evening 
dusk,  to  a  west  of  glory,  just  vacant  of  the  sun.  The  golden  ball 
had  sunk  into  the  mists  awaiting  it,  but  the  splendour  of  its  last 
rays  was  still  on  all  the  western  front  of  the  hills,  bathing  the  beech 
woods  as  they  rose  and  fell  with  the  large  undulations  of  the 
ground. 

Insensibly  Raeburn,  filled  as  he  was  with  a  new  and  surging 
emotion,  drew  the  solemnity  of  the  forest  glades  and  of  the  rolling 
distances  into  his  heart.  When  he  reached  the  point  where  the 
road  diverged  to  the  left,  he  mounted  a  little  grassy  ridge,  whence 
he  commanded  the  whole  sweep  of  the  hill  rampart  from  north  to 
west,  and  the  whole  expanse  of  the  low  country  beneath,  and  there 
stood  gazing  for  some  minutes,  lost  in  jnany  thoughts,  while  the 
night  fell. 

He  looked  over  the  central  plain  of  England  —  the  plain  which 
stretches  westward  to  the  Thames  and  the  Berkshire  hills,  and 
northward  through  the  Buckinghamshire  and  Bedfordshire  low- 
lands to  the  basin  of  the  Trent.  An  historic  plain- — ^symbolic, 
all   of   it,  to   an   EngMsh   eye.      There   in  the   western    distance, 


CHAP.  V  MAKCELLA  4S 

amid  the  light-filled  inists,  lay  Oxford;  in  front  of  him  was  the 
site  of  Chalgrove  Field,  where  Hampden  got  his  clumsy  death 
wound,  and  Thame,  where  he  died ;  and  far  away,  to  his  right, 
where  the  hills  swept  to  the  north,  he  could  just  discern,  gleam- 
ing against  the  face  of  the  down,  the  vast  scoured  cross,  whereby 
a  Saxon  king  had  blazoned  his  victory  over  his  Danish  foes  to  all 
the  plain  beneath. 

Aldous  Raeburn  was  a  man  to  feel  these  things.  He  had  sel- 
dom stood  on  this  high  point,  in  such  an  evening  calm,  without 
the  expansion  in  him  of  all  that  was  most  manly,  most  English, 
most  strenuous.  If  it  had  not  been  so,  indeed,  he  must  have  been 
singularly  dull  of  soul.  For  the  great  view  had  an  interest  for 
him  personally  it  could  hardly  have  possessed  to  the  same  degree 
for  any  other  man.  On  his  left  hand  Maxwell  Court  rose  among 
its  woods  on  the  brow  of  the  hill  —  a  splendid  pile  which  some  day 
would  be  his.  Behind  him  ;  through  all  the  upland  he  had  just 
traversed ;  beneath  the  point  where  he  stood ;  along  the  sides  of 
the  hills,  and  far  into  the  plain,  sti-etched  the  land  which  also 
would  be  his  —  which,  indeed,  practically  was  already  his  —  for  his 
grandfather  was  an  old  man  with  a  boundless  trust  in  the  heir  on 
whom  his  affections  and  hopes  were  centred.  The  dim  churches 
scattered  over  the  immediate  plain  below;  tlie  villages  clustered 
round  them,  where  dwelt  the  toilers  in  these  endless  fields ;  the 
farms  amid  their  trees ;  the  cottages  showing  here  and  there 
on  the  fringes  of  the  wood  —  all  the  equipment  and  organisation 
of  popular  life  over  an  appreciable  part  of  the  English  midland  at 
his  feet,  depended  to  an  extent  hardly  to  be  exaggerated,  under 
the  conditions  of  the  England  of  to-day,  upon  him  —  upon  his  one 
man's  brain  and  conscience,  the  degree  of  his  mental  and  moral 
capacity 

In  his  first  youth,  of  course,  the  thought  had  often  roused  a 
boy's  tremulous  elation  and  sense  of  romance.  Since  his  Cam- 
bridge days,  and  of  late  years,  any  more  acute  or  dramatic  pei'cep- 
tion  than  usual  of  his  lot  in  life  had  been  wont  to  bring  with  it 
rather  a  consciousness  of  weight  than  of  inspiration.  Sensitive, 
fastidious,  reflective,  he  was  disturbed  by  remorses  and  scruples 
which  had  never  plagued  his  forefathers.  During  his  college  days, 
the  special  circumstances  of  a  great  friendship  had  drawn  him  into 
the  full  tide  of  a  social  speculation  which,  as  it  happened,  was 
destined  to  go  deeper  with  him  than  with  most  men.  The  respon- 
sibilities of  the  rich,  the  disadvantages  of  the  po.or,  the  relation  of 
the  State  to  the  individual  —  of  the  old  Radical  dogma  of  free 
contract  to  the  thwarting  facts  of  social  inequality ;  the  Tory 
ideal  of  paternal  government  by  the  few  as  compared  with  the 
liberal  ideal  of  self-government  by  the  many  :  these  commonplaces 


44  MARCELLA  book  i 

of  economical  and  political  discussion  had  very  early  become  living 
and  often  sore  realities  in  Aldous  Raeburn's  mind,  because  of  the 
long  conflict  in  him,  dating  from  his  Cambridge  life,  between  the 
influences  of  birth  and  early  education  and  the  influences  of  an 
admiring  and  profound  affection  which  had  opened  to  him  the 
gates  of  a  new  moral  world. 

Towards  the  close  of  his  first  year  at  Trinity,  a  young  man  joined 
the  college  who  rapidly  became,  in  spite  of  various  practical  disad- 
vantages, a  leader  among  the  best  and  keenest  of  his  fellows.  He 
was  poor  and  held  a  small  scholarship ;  but  it  was  soon  plain  that 
his  health  was  not  equal  to  the  Tripos  routine,  and  that  the  prizes 
of  the  place,  brilliant  as  was  his  intellectual  endowment,  were  not 
for  him.  After  an  inward  struggle,  of  which  none  perhaps  but 
Aldous  Raeburn  had  any  exact  knowledge,  he  laid  aside  his  first 
ambitions  and  turned  himself  to  another  career.  A  couple  of 
hours'  serious  brainwork  in  the  day  was  all  that  was  ever  possible 
to  him  henceforward.  He  spent  it,  as  well  as  the  thoughts  and 
conversation  of  his  less  strenuous  moments,  on  the  study  of  history 
and  sociology,  with  a  view  to  joining  the  staff  of  lecturers  for  the 
manufacturing  and  country  towns  which  the  two  great  Univer- 
sities, touched  by  new  and  popular  sympathies,  were  then  begin- 
ning to  organise.  He  came  of  a  stock  which  promised  well  for 
such  a  pioneer's  task.  His  father  had  been  an  able  factory  in- 
spector, well-known  for  his  share  in  the  inauguration  and  revision 
of  certain  important  factory  reforms ;  the  son  inherited  a  pas- 
sionate humanity  of  soul ;  and  added  to  it  a  magnetic  and  personal 
charm  which  soon  made  him  a  remarkable  jjower,  not  only  in  his 
own  college,  but  among  the  finer  spirits  of  the  University  generally. 
He  had  the  gift  which  enables  a  man,  sitting  perhaps  after  dinner 
in  a  mixed  society  of  his  college  contemporaries,  to  lead  the  way 
imperceptibly  from  tlxe  casual  subjects  of  the  hour —  the  river,  the 
dons,  the  schools  —  to  arguments  "of  great  pith  and  moment," 
discussions  that  search  the  moral  and  intellectual  powers  of  the 
men  concerned  to  the  utmost,  without  exciting  distrust  or  any  but 
an  argumentative  opposition.  Edward  Hallin  could  do  this  with- 
out a  pose,  without  a  false  note,  nay,  rather  by  the  natural  force 
of  a  boyish  intensity  and  simplicity.  To  many  a  Trinity  man  in 
after  life  the  memory  of  his  slight  figure  and  fair  head,  of  the 
eager  slightly  parted  mouth,  of  the  eyes  glowing  with  some  inward 
vision,  and  of  the  gesture  with  which  he  would  spring  up  at  some 
critical  point  to  deliver  himself,  standing  amid  his  seated  and  often 
dissentient  auditors,  came  back  vivid  and  ineffaceable  as  only 
youth  can  make  tlie  image  of  its  prophets. 

Upon  Aldous  Raeburn,  Edward  Hallin  produced  from  the  first 
a  deep  impression.     The  interests  to  which  Hallin's   mind  soon 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  45 

became  exclusively  devoted  —  such  as  the  systematic  study  of 
English  poverty,  or  of  the  relation  of  i-eligion  to  social  life,  reforms 
of  the  land  and  of  the  Church  —  overflowed  upon  Raeburn  with  a 
kindling  and  disturbing  force.  PMward  Hallin  was  his  gad-fly; 
and  he  had  no  resource,  because  he  loved  his  tormentor. 

Fundamentally,  the  two  men  were  widely  different.  Raeburn 
was  a  true  son  of  his  fathers,  possessed  by  natural  inheritance  of 
the  finer  instincts  of  aristocratic  rule,  including  a  deep  contempt 
for  mob-reason  and  all  the  vulgarities  of  popular  rhetoric ;  steeped, 
too,  in  a  number  of  subtle  prejudices,  and  in  a  silent  but  intense 
pride  of  family  of  the  nobler  sort.  He  followed  with  disquiet  and 
distrust  the  quick  motions  and  conclusions  of  Hallin's  intellect. 
Temperament  and  the  Cambridge  discijiline  made  him  a  fastidious 
thinker  and  a  fine  scholar;  his  mind  worked  slowly,  yet  with  a 
delicate  precision  ;  and  his  generally  cold  manner  was  the  natural 
protection  of  feelings  which  had  never  yet,  except  in  the  case  of 
his  friendship  with  Edward  Hallin,  led  him  to  much  personal 
happiness. 

Hallin  left  Cambridge  after  a  pass  degree  to  become  lecturer  on 
industrial  and  economical  questions  in  the  northern  English  towns. 
Raeburn  stayed  on  a  year  longer,  found  himself  third  classic  and 
the  winner  of  a  Greek  verse  prize,  and  then,  sacrificing  the  idea  of 
a  fellowship,  returned  to  Maxwell  Court  to  be  his  grandfather's 
companion  and  helper  in  the  work  of  the  estate,  his  family  propos- 
ing that,  after  a  few  years'  practical  experience  of  the  life  and 
occupations  of  a  country  gentleman,  he  should  enter  Parliament 
and  make  a  career  in  politics.  Since  then  five  or  six  years  had 
passed,  during  which  he  had  learned  to  know  the  estate  thoroughly, 
and  to  take  his  normal  share  in  the  business  and  pleasures  of  the 
neighbourhood.  For  the  last  two  years  he  had  been  his  grand- 
father's sole  agent,  a  poor-law  guardian  and  magistrate  besides, 
and  a  member  of  most  of  the  various  committees  for  social  and 
educational  purposes  in  the  county.  He  was  a  sufficiently  keen 
sportsman  to  save  appearances  with  his  class ;  enjoyed  a  walk 
after  the  partridges  indeed,  -with  a  friend  or  two,  as  much  as  most 
men ;  and  played  the  host  at  the  two  or  three  great  battues  of  the 
year  with  a  propriety  which  his  grandfather  how^ever  no  longer 
mistook  for  enthusiasm.  There  was  nothing  much  to  distinguish 
him  from  any  other  able  man  of  his  rank.  His  neighbours  felt 
him  to  be  a  personality,  but  thought  him  reserved  and  difficult ; 
he  was  respected,  but  he  was  not  popular  like  his  grandfather; 
people  speculated  as  to  how  he  would  get  on  in  Parliament,  or 
whom  he  was  to  marry;  but,  except  to  the  dwellers  in  IVIaxwell 
Court  itself,  or  of  late  to  the  farmers  and  labourers  on  the  estate, 
it  would  not  have  mattered  much  to  anybody  if  he  had  not  b^eu 


46  MARCELLA  book  i 

there.  Nobody  ever  connected  any  romantic  thought  with  him. 
There  was  something  in  his  strong  build,  pale  but  healthy  aquiline 
face,  his  inconspicuous  brown  eyes  and  hair,  which  seemed  from 
the  beginning  to  mark  him  out  as  the  ordinary  earthy  dweller  in 
an  earthy  world. 

Nevertheless,  these  years  had  been  to  Aldous  Raeburn  years 
marked  by  an  expansion  and  deepening  of  the  wliole  man,  such  as 
few  are  capable  of.  Edward  Hallin's  visits  to  the  Court,  the  walk- 
ing tours  which  brought  the  two  friends  together  almost  every  year 
in  Switzerland  or  the  Highlands,  the  course  of  a  full  and  intimate 
correspondence,  and  the  various  calls  made  for  public  purposes  by 
the  enthusiast  and  pioneer  upon  the  pocket  and  social  power  of 
the  rich  man  —  these  things  and  influences,  together,  of  course, 
with  the  pressure  of  an  environing  world,  ever  more  real,  and,  on 
the  whole,  ever  more  oppressive,  as  it  was  better  understood,  had 
confronted  Aldous  Raeburn  before  now  with  a  good  many  teasing 
problems  of  conduct  and  experience.  His  tastes,  his  sympathies, 
his  affinities  were  all  with  the  old  order;  but  the  old  faiths  —  eco- 
nomical, social,  religious  —  were  fermenting  within  him  in  differ- 
ent stages  of  disintegration  and  reconstruction ;  and  his  reserved 
habit  and  often  solitary  life  tended  to  scrupulosity  and  over-refine- 
ment. His  future  career  as  a  landowner  and  politician  was  by  no 
means  clear  to  him.  One  thing  only  was  clear  to  him  —  that  to 
dogmatise  about  any  subject  under  heaven,  at  the  present  day, 
more  than  the  immediate  practical  occasion  absolutely  demanded, 
was  the  act  of  an  idiot. 

So  that  Aldous  Raeburn's  moments  of  reflection  had  been  con- 
stantly mixed  with  struggle  of  different  kinds.  And  the  particular 
point  of  view  where  he  stood  on  this  September  evening  had  been 
often  associated  in  his  memory  with  flashes  of  self-realisation 
which  were,  on  the  whole,  more  of  a  torment  to  him  than  a  joy. 
If  he  had  not  been  Aldous  Raeburn,  or  any  other  person,  tied  to  a 
particular  individuality,  with  a  particular  place  and  label  in  the 
world,  the  task  of  the  analytic  mind,  in  face  of  the  spectacle  of 
what  is,  would  have  been  a  more  possible  one!  —  so  it  had  often 
seemed  to  him. 

But  to-night  all  this  cumbering  consciousness,  all  these  self-made 
doubts  and  worries,  had  for  the  moment  dropped  clean  away !  A 
transfigured  man  it  was  that  lingered  at  the  old  spot  —  a  man  once 
more  young,  divining  with  enchantment  the  approach  of  passion, 
feeling  at  last  through  all  his  being  the  ecstasy  of  a  self-surrender, 
long  missed,  long  hungered  for. 

Sis  weeks  was  it  since  he  had  first  seen  her  —  this  tall,  straight, 
Marcella  Boyce?  He  shut  his  eyes  impatiently  against  the  dis- 
turbing golds  and  purples  of  the  sunset,  and  tried  to  see  her  again 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  47 

as  she  had  walked  beside  him  across  the  church  fields,  in  that  thin 
black  dress,  with  the  shadow  of  the  hat  across  her  brow  and  eyes 

—  the  small  Avhite  teeth  flashing  as  she  talked  and  smiled,  the 
hand  so  ready  with  its  gesture,  so  restless,  so  alive  !  What  a  pres- 
ence—  how  absorbing,  troubling,  preoccupying!  No  one  in  her 
company  could  forget  her  —  nay,  could  fail  to  observe  her.  What 
ease  and  daring,  and  yet  no  hardness  with  it  —  rather  deep  on  deep 
of  womanly  weakness,  softness,  passion,  beneath  it  all ! 

How  straight  she  had  flung  her  questions  at  him !  —  her  most 
awkward  embarrassing  questions.  What  other  woman  would 
have  dared  such  candour  —  unless  perhaps  as  a  stroke  of  fine  art 

—  he  had  known  women  indeed  who  could  have  done  it  so.  But 
where  could  be  the  art,  the  policy,  he  asked  himself  indignantly, 
in  the  sudden  outburst  of  a  young  girl  pleading  with  her  com- 
panion's sense  of  truth  and  good  feeling  in  behalf  of  those  nearest 
to  her  ? 

As  to  her  dilemma  itself,  in  his  excitement  he  thought  of  it  with 
nothing  but  the  purest  pleasure !  She  had  let  him  see  that  she 
did  not  expect  him  to  be  able  to  do  much  for  her,  though  she  was 
ready  to  believe  him  her  friend.  Ah  well  —  he  drew  a  long  breath. 
For  once,  Raeburn,  strange  compound  that  he  was  of  the  man  of 
rank  and  the  philosopher,  remembered  his  own  social  power  and 
position  with  an  exultant  satisfaction.  No  doubt  Dick  Boyce  had 
misbehaved  himself  badly  —  the  strength  of  Lord  Maxwell's  feel- 
ing was  sufficient  proof  thereof.  No  doubt  the  "  county,"  as  Rae- 
burn himself  knew,  in  some  detail,  were  disposed  to  leave  Mellor 
Park  severely  alone.  What  of  that  ?  AVas  it  for  nothing  that  the 
Maxwells  had  been  for  generations  at  the  head  of  the  "  county," 
i.e.  of  that  circle  of  neighbouring  families  connected  by  the  ties  of 
ancestral  friendship,  or  of  intermarriage,  on  whom  in  this  purely 
agricultural  and  rural  district  the  social  pleasui-e  and  comfort  of 
Miss  Boyce  and  her  mother  must  depend? 

He,  like  Marcella,  did  not  believe  that  Richard  Boyce's  offences 
were  of  the  quite  unpardonable  order ;  although,  owing  to  a  certain 
absent  and  preoccupied  temper,  he  had  never  yet  taken  the  trouble 
to  enquire  into  thein  in  detail.  As  to  any  real  restoration  of  cor- 
diality between  the  owner  of  Mellor  and  his  father's  old  friends 
and  connections,  that  of  course  was  not  to  be  looked  for ;  but  there 
should  be  decent  social  recognition,  and  —  in  the  case  of  Mrs. 
Boyce  and  her  daughter  —  there  should  be  homage  and  warm  wel- 
come, simply  because  she  wished  it,  and  it  was  absurd  she  should 
not  have  it !  Raeburn,  whose  mind  was  ordinarily  destitute  of  the 
most  elementary  capacity  for  social  intrigue,  began  to  plot  in  detail 
liow  it  should  be  done.  He  relied  first  upon  winning  his  grand- 
father—  his  popular  distinguished  grandfather,  whose  lightest  \a  ord 


48  MARCELLA  booiv  i 

had  weight  in  Brookshire.  And  then,  he  himself  had  two  or  three 
women  friends  in  the  coiinty  —  not  more,  for  women  had  not  occu- 
pied much  place  in  his  thoughts  till  now.  But  they  were  good 
friends,  and,  from  the  social  point  of  view,  important.  He  would 
set  them  to  work  at  once.  These  things  should  be  chiefly  managed 
by  women. 

But  no  patronage !  She  would  never  bear  that,  the  glancing 
proud  creature.  She  must  guess,  indeed,  let  him  tread  as  delicately 
as  he  might,  that  he  and  others  were  at  work  for  her.  But  oh ! 
she  should  be  softly  handled ;  as  far  as  he  could  achieve  it,  she 
should,  in  a  very  little  while,  live  and  breathe  compassed  with  warm 
airs  of  good-will  and  consideration. 

He  felt  himself  happy,  amazingly  happy,  that  at  the  very  begin- 
ning of  his  love,  it  should  thus  be  open  to  him,  in  these  trivial, 
foolish  ways,  to  please  and  befriend  her.  Her  social  dilemma  and 
discomfort  one  moment,  indeed,  made  him  sore  for  her ;  the  next, 
they  were  a  kind  of  joy,  since  it  was  they  gave  him  this  oppor- 
tunity to  put  out  a  strong  right  arm. 

Everything  about  her  at  this  moment  was  divine  and  lovely  to 
him ;  all  the  qualities  of  her  rich  uneven  youth  which  she  had 
shown  in  their  short  intercourse  —  her  rashness,  her  impulsiveness, 
her  generosity.  Let  her  but  trust  herself  to  him,  and  she  should 
try  her  social  experiments  as  she  pleased  —  she  should  plan  Utopias, 
and  he  would  be  her  hodman  to  build  them.  The  man  perplexed 
with  too  much  thinking  remembered  the  girl's  innocent,  ignorant 
readiness  to  stamp  the  world's  stuff  anew  after  the  forms  of  her 
own  pitying  thought,  with  a  positive  thirst  of  sympathy.  The 
deep  poetry  and  ideality  at  the  root  of  him  under  all  the  weight  of 
intellectual  and  critical  debate  leapt  towards  her.  He  thought  of 
the  rapid  talk  she  had  poured  out  upon  him,  after  their  compact 
of  friendship,  in  their  walk  back  to  the  church,  of  her  enthusiasm 
for  her  Socialist  friends  and  their  ideals,  —  with  a  momentary  mad- 
ness of  self -suppression  and  tender  humility.  In  reality,  a  maii 
like  Aldous  Raeburn  is  born  to  be  the  judge  and  touchstone  of 
natures  like  Marcella  Boyce.  But  the  illusion  of  jjassion  may  deal 
as  disturbingly  with  moral  rank  as  with  social. 

It  was  his  first  love.  Years  before,  in  the  vacation  before  he 
went  to  college,  his  boyish  mind  had  been  crossed  by  a  fancy  for  a 
pretty  cousin  a  little  older  than  himself,  who  had  been  very  kind 
indeed  to  Lord  Maxwell's  heii"-  But  then  came  Cambridge,  the 
flow  of  a  new  mental  life,  his  friendship  for  Edward  Hallin,  and 
the  beginnings  of  a  moral  storm  and  stress.  When  he  and  the 
cousin  next  met,  he  was  quite  cold  to  her.  She  seemed  to  him  a 
pretty  piece  of  millinery,  endowed  with  a  trick  of  parrot  phrases. 
She,  on  her  part,  thought  him  detestable;    she  married  shortly 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  49 

afterwards,  and  often  spoke  to  her  husband  in  private  of  her  "  es- 
cape "  from  tliat  queer  fellow  Aldous  Raeburn. 

Since  then  he  had  known  plenty  of  pretty  and  charming  women, 
both  in  London  and  in  the  country,  and  had  made  friends  with 
some  of  them  in  his  quiet  serious  way.  But  none  of  them  had 
roused  in  him  even  a  passing  thrill  of  passion.  He  had  despised 
himself  for  it ;  had  told  himself  again  and  again  that  he  was  but 
half  a  man  — 

Ah !  he  had  done  himself  injustice  —  he  had  done  himself  injustice ! 

His  heart  was  light  as  air.  When  at  last  the  sound  of  a  clock 
striking  in  the  plain  roused  him  with  a  start,  and  he  sprang  up 
from  the  heap  of  stones  where  he  had  been  sitting  in  the  dusk, 
he  bent  down  a  moment  to  give  a  gay  caress  to  his  dog,  and  then 
trudged  off  briskly  home,  whistling  under  the  emerging  stars. 


CHAPTER  VI 

By  the  time,  however,  that  Aldous  Raeburn  came  within  sight 
of  the  windows  of  Maxwell  Court  his  first  exaltation  had  sobered 
down.  The  lover  had  fallen,  for  the  time,  into  the  background, 
and  the  capable,  serious  man  of  thirty,  with  a  considerable  experi- 
ence of  the  world  behind  him,  was  perfectly  conscious  that  there 
were  many  difficulties  in  his  path.  He  could  not  induce  his  grand- 
father to  move  in  the  matter  of  Richard  Boyce  without  a  statement 
of  his  own  feelings  and  aims.  Nor  would  he  have  avoided  frank- 
ness if  he  could.  On  every  ground  it  was  his  grandfather's  due. 
The  Raeburns  were  reserved  towards  the  rest  of  the  world,  but 
amongst  themselves  there  had  always  been  a  fine  tradition  of 
mutual  trust ;  and  Lord  Maxwell  amply  deserved  that  at  this  pai'- 
ticular  moment  his  grandson  should  maintain  it. 

But  Raeburn  could  not  and  did  not  flatter  himself  that  his 
grandfather  would,  to  begin  with,  receive  his  news  even  with  toler- 
ation. The  grim  satisfaction  with  which  that  note  about  the  shoot- 
ing had  been  despatched,  was  very  cleai"  in  the  grandson's  memory. 
At  the  same  time  it  said  much  for  the  history  of  those  long  years 
during  which  the  old  man  and  his  heir  had  been  left  to  console 
each  other  for  the  terrible  bereavements  whicli  had  thrown  them 
together,  that  Aldous  Raeburn  never  for  an  instant  feared  the  kind 
of  violent  outburst  and  opposition  that  other  men  in  similar  cir- 
cumstances might  have  looked  forward  to.  The  just  living  of  a 
lifetime"  makes  a  man  incapable  of  any  mere  selfish  handling  of 
another's  interests  —  a  fact  on  which  the  bystander  may  reckon. 

It  was  quite  dark  by  the  time  he  entered  the  large  open-i-oofed 
hall  of  the  Court. 


50  MARCELLA  book  i 

"  Is  liis  lordship  in  V  "  he  asked  of  a  passing  footman. 

"  Yes,  sir  —  in  the  library.     He  has  been  asking  for  you,  sir." 

Aldous  turned  to  the  right  along  the  fine  corridor  lighted  with 
Tudor  windows  to  an  inner  quadrangle,  and  filled  with  Grseco- 
Roman  statuary  and  sarcophagi,  which  made  one  of  the  principal 
features  of  the  Court.  The  great  house  was  warm  and  scented, 
and  the  various  open  doors  which  lie  passed  on  his  way  to  the 
librarj^  disclosed  large  fire-lit  rooms,  with  panelling,  tapestry,  pict- 
ures, books  everywhere.  The  colour  of  the  whole  was  dim  and 
rich ;  antiquity,  refinement  reigned,  together  with  an  exquisite 
quiet  and  order.  No  one  was  to  be  seen,  and  not  a  voice  was  to  be 
heard ;  but  there  was  no  impression  of  solitude.  These  warm, 
darkly-glowing  rooms  seemed  to  be  waiting  for  the  return  of 
guests  just  gone  out  of  them  ;  not  one  of  them  but  had  au  air  of 
cheerful  company.  For  once,  as  he  walked  through  it,  Aldous 
Raeburn  spared  the  old  house  an  affectionate  possessive  thought. 
Its  size  and  wealth,  with  all  that  both  implied,  had  often  weighed 
upon  him.  To-night  his  breath  quickened  as  he  passed  the  range 
of  family  portraits  leading  to  the  library  door.  There  was  a 
vacant  space  here  and  there  —  "  room  for  your  missus,  too,  ray 
boy,  when  you  get  her !  "  as  his  grandfather  had  once  put  it. 

"Why,  you've  had  a  long  day,  Aldous,  all  by  youi'self,"  said 
Lord  Maxwell,  turning  sharply  round  at  the  sound  of  the  opening 
door.     "  What's  kept  you  so  late  ?  " 

His  spectacles  fell  forward  as  he  spoke,  and  the  old  man  shut 
them  in  his  hand,  peering  at  his  grandson  through  the  shadows  of 
the  room.  He  y^s  sitting  by  a  huge  fire,  an  "  Edinburgh  Review  " 
open  on  his  knee.  Lamp  and  fire-light  showed  a  finely-carried 
head,  with  a  high  wave  of  snowy  hair  thrown  back,  a  long  face 
delicately  sharp  in  the  lines,  and  an  attitude  instinct  with  the 
alertness  of  an  unimpaired  bodily  vigour. 

"  The  birds  were  scarce,  and  we  followed  them  a  good  way,'' 
said  Aldous,  as  he  came  up  to  the  fire.  "  Rickman  kept  me  on  the 
farm,  too,  a  good  while,  with  interminable  screeds  about  the  things 
he  wants  done  for  him." 

"  Oh,  there  is  no  end  to  Rickman,"  said  Lord  Maxwell,  good- 
humouredly.  "  He  pays  his  rent  for  the  amusement  of  getting  it 
back  again.  Landowning  will  soon  be  the  most  disinterested  form 
of  philanthropy  known  to  mankind.  But  I  have  some  news  for 
you !  Here  is  a  letter  from  Barton  by  the  second  post "  —  he 
named  an  old  friend  of  his  own,  and  a  Cabinet  Minister  of  the 
day.  "  Look  at  it.  You  will  see  he  says  they  can't  possibly  carry 
on  beyond  .January.     Half  their  men  are  becoming  unmanageable, 

and  S 's  bill,  to  which  they  are  committed,  will  certainly  dish 

them.     Parliament  will  meet  in  Januarv,  and  he  thinks  an  amend- 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  51 

nient  to  the  Address  will  finish  it.  All  this  confidential,  of  course; 
but  he  saw  no  harm  in  letting  me  know.  So  now.  my  boy,  you 
will  have  your  work  cut  out  for  you  this  winter !  Two  or  three 
evenings  a  week  —  you'll  not  get  off  with  less.  Nobody's  plum 
drops  into  his  mouth  nowadays.  Barton  tells  me,  too,  that  he 
hears  young  Wharton  will  certainly  stand  for  the  Durnford  divis- 
ion, and  will  be  down  upon  us  directl}^  He  will  make  himself 
as  disagreeable  to  us  and  tlie  Levens  as  he  can  —  that  we  may  be 
sure  of.  We  may  be  thankful  for  one  small  mercy,  that  his 
mother  has  departed  this  life !  otherwise  you  and  I  would  have 
known  furens  quid  femina  posset !  " 

The  old  man  looked  up  at  his  grandson  with  a  humorous  eye. 
Aldous  was  standing  absently  before  the  fire,  and  did  not  reply 
immediately. 

"  Come,  come,  Aldous  !  "  said  Lord  Maxwell  with  a  touch  of 
impatience,  "  don't  overdo  the  philosopher.  Though  I  am  getting 
old,  the  next  Government  can't  deny  me  a  finger  in  the  pie.  You 
and  I  between  us  will  be  able  to  pull  through  two  or  three  of  the 
things  we  care  about  in  the  next  House,  with  ordinary  luck.  It  is 
my  firm  belief  that  the  next  election  will  give  our  side  the  best 
chance  we  have  had  for  half  a  generation.  Throw  up  your  cap, 
sir !  The  world  may  be  made  of  green  cheese,  but  we  have  got 
to  live  in  it !  " 

Aldous  smiled  suddenly  —  uncontrollably  —  with  a  look  w^hich 
left  his  grandfather  staring.  He  had  been  appealing  to  the  man 
of  maturity  standing  on  the  threshold  of  a  possibly  considerable 
career,  and,  as  he  did  so,  it  w'as  as  though  he  saw  the  boy  of  eigli- 
teen  reappear ! 

"  Je  ne  demande  pas  mieux !  "  said  Aldous  with  a  quick  lift  of  the 
voice  above  its  ordinary  key.  "  The  fact  is,  grandfather,  I  have 
come  home  with  something  in  my  mind  very  different  from  politics 
—  and  you  must  give  me  time  to  change  the  focus.  I  did  not 
come  home  as  straight  as  I  might  —  for  I  wanted  to  be  sure  of 
myself  before  I  spoke  to  you.     During  the  last  few  weeks  — " 

"  Go  on  !  "  cried  Lord  Maxwell. 

But  Aldous  did  not  find  it  easy  to  go  on.  It  suddenly  struck 
him  that  it  was  after  all  absurd  that  he  should  be  confiding  in  any 
one  at  such  a  stage,  and  his  tongue  stumbled. 

But  he  had  gone  too  far  for  retreat.  Lord  Maxwell  sprang  u[> 
and  seized  him  by  the  arms. 

"  You  are  in  love,  sir  !     Out  with  it!  " 

"  I  have  seen  the  oidy  woman  in  the  world  I  have  ever  wished 
to  marry,"  said  Aldous,  flushing,  but  witii  deliberation.  "  Whether 
she  will  ever  have  me,  I  have  no  idea.  But  I  can  conceive  no 
greater  happiness  than  to  win  her.     And  as  I  want  you,  graufl- 


52  MARCELLA  book   i 

father,  to  do  something  for  her  and  for  me,  it  seemed  to  me  I  had 
no  right  to  keep  my  feelings  to  myself.  Besides,  I  am  not  accus- 
tomed to  —  to  —  "  His  voice  wavered  a  little.  "  You  have  treated 
me  as  more  than  a  son  !  " 

Lord  JNIaxwell  pressed  his  arm  affectionately. 

"  My  dear  boy  !  But  don't  keep  me  on  tenterhooks  like  this  — 
tell  me  the  name !  —  the  name !  " 

And  two  or  three  long  meditated  possibilities  flashed  through 
the  old  man's  mind. 

Aldous  replied  with  a  certain  slow  stiffness  — 

"  Marcella  Boyce  !  —  Richard  Boyce's  daughter.  I  saw  her  first 
six  weeks  ago." 

"  God  bless  my  soul !  "  exclaimed  Lord  Maxwell,  falling  back  a 
step  or  two,  and  staring  at  his  companion.  Aldous  watched  him 
with  anxiety. 

"  You  know  that  fellow's  history,  Aldous  ?  " 

"  Richard  Boyce?  Not  in  detail.  If  you  will  tell  me  now  all 
you  know,  it  will  be  a  help.  Of  course,  I  see  that  you  and  the 
neighbourhood  mean  to  cut  him,  —  and  —  for  the  sake  of  —  of 
Miss  Boyce  and  her  mother,  I  should  be  glad  to  find  a  way  out." 

"  Good  heavens ! "  said  Lord  Maxwell,  beginning  to  pace  the 
room,  hands  pressed  behind  him,  head  bent.  "  Good  heavens  ! 
what  a  business !  what  an  extraordinary  business !  " 

He  stopped  short  in  front  of  Aldous.  "  Where  have  you  been 
meeting  her  —  this  young  lady  V  " 

"  At  the  Hardens'  —  sometimes  in  Mellor  village.  She  goes 
about  among  the  cottages  a  great  deal." 

"  You  have  not  proposed  to  her  ?  " 

"  I  was  not  certain  of  myself  till  to-day.  Besides  it  would  have 
been  presumption  so  far.  She  has  shown  me  nothing  but  the 
merest  friendliness." 

"  What,  you  can  suppose  she  would  refuse  you !  "  cried  Lord 
Maxwell,  and  could  not  for  the  life  of  him  keep  the  sarcastic 
intonation  out  of  his  voice. 

Aldous's  look  showed  distress.  "  You  have  not  seen  her,  grand- 
father," he  said  quietly. 

Lord  Maxwell  began  to  pace  again,  trying  to  restrain  the  painful 
emotion  that  filled  him.  Of  course,  Aldous  had  been  entrapped ; 
the  girl  had  played  wpon  his  pity,  his  chivalry  —  for  obvious 
reasons. 

Aldous  tried  to  soothe  him,  to  explain,  but  Lord  Maxwell  hardly 
listened.  At  last  he  threw  himself  into  his  chair  again  with  a 
long  breath. 

"  Give  me  time,  Aldous  —  give  me  time.  The  thought  of  marry- 
ing my  heir  to  that  man's  daughter  knocks  me  over  a  little." 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  53 

There  was  silence  again.  Then  Lord  Maxwell  looked  at  his 
watch  with  old-fashioned  precision. 

"  There  is  half  an  hour  before  dinner.  Sit  down,  and  let  us 
talk  this  thing  out." 

The  conversation  thus  started,  however,  was  only  begun  by  din- 
ner-time ;  was  resumed  after  Miss  Raeburn  —  the  small,  shrewd, 
bright-eyed  person  who  governed  Lord  Maxwell's  household  —  had 
withdrawn ;  and  was  continued  in  the  library  some  time  beyond 
his  lordship's  usual  retiring  hour.  It  was  for  the  most  part  a 
monologue  on  the  part  of  the  grandfather,  broken  by  occasional 
words  from  his  companion ;  and  for  some  time  Marcella  Boyce 
herself  —  the  woman  whom  Aldous  desired  to  marry —  was  hardly 
mentioned  in  it.  Oppressed  and  tormented  by  a  surprise  which 
struck,  or  seemed  to  strike,  at  some  of  his  most  cherished  ideals 
and  just  resentments,  Lord  Maxwell  was  bent  upon  letting  his 
grandson  know,  in  all  their  fulness,  the  reasons  why  no  daughter 
of  Richard  Boyce  could  ever  be,  in  the  true  sense,  fit  wife  for  a 
Raeburn. 

Aldous  was,  of  course,  perfectly  familiar  with  the  creed  implied 
in  it  all.  A  Maxwell  shoidd  give  himself  no  airs  whatever,  should 
indeed  feel  no  jiride  whatever,  towards  "  men  of  goodwill,"  whether 
peasant,  professional,  or  noble.  Such  airs  or  such  feeling  would 
be  both  vulgar  and  unchristian.  But  when  it  came  to  marriage, 
then  it  behoved  him  to  see  that  "  the  family  '•  —  that  carefully 
grafted  and  selected  stock  to  which  he  owed  so  much  —  should 
suffer  no  loss  or  deterioration  through  him.  Marriage  with  the 
fit  woman  meant  for  a  Raeburn  the  preservation  of  a  pure  blood, 
of  a  dignified  and  honourable  family  habit,  and  moreover  the 
securing  to  his  children  such  an  atmosphere  of  self-respect  within, 
and  of  consideration  from  without,  as  he  had  himself  grown  up  in. 
And  a  woman  could  not  be  fit,  in  this  sense,  who  came  either  of 
an  insignificant  stock,  untrained  to  large  uses  and  opportunities, 
or  of  a  stock  which  had  degenerated,  and  lost  its  right  of  equal 
mating  with  the  vigorous  owners  of  unblemished  names.  Money 
was  of  course  important  and  not  to  be  despised,  but  the  present 
Lord  Maxwell,  at  any  rate,  large-minded  and  conscious  of  wealth 
he  could  never  spend,  laid  comparatively  little  stress  upon  it; 
whereas,  in  his  old  age,  the  other  instinct  had  but  grown  the 
stronger  with  him,  as  the  world  waxed  more  democratic,  and  the 
influence  of  the  great  families  waned. 

Nor  could  Aldous  pretend  to  be  insensible  to  such  feelings  and 
beliefs.  Supposing  the  daughter  could  be  won,  there  was  no 
doubt  whatever  that  Richard  Boyce  would  be  a  cross  and  burden 
to  a  Raebiu'n  son-in-law.     But  then !     After  all !     Love  for  once 


54  MARCEliLA  book  i 

made  philosophy  easy —  made  class  tradition  sit  light.  Impatience 
grew;  a  readiness  to  believe  Richard  Boyce  as  black  as  Erebus 
and  be  done  with  it,  —  so  that  one  might  get  to  the  point  —  the 
real  point. 

As  to  the  story,  it  came  to  this.  In  his  youth,  Richard  Boyce 
had  been  the  younger  and  favourite  son  of  his  father.  He 
possessed  some  ability,  some  good  looks,  some  manners,  all  of 
which  were  wanting  in  his  loutish  elder  brother.  Sacrifices  were 
accordingly  made  for  him.  He  was  sent  to  the  bar.  When  he 
stood  for  Parliament  his  election  expenses  were  jubilantly  paid, 
and  his  father  afterwards  maintained  him  with  as  generous  a  hand 
as  the  estate  could  possibly  bear,  often  in  the  teeth  of  the  grudging 
resentment  of  Robert  his  firstborn.  Richard  showed  signs  of 
making  a  rapid  success,  at  any  rate  on  the  political  platform.  He 
spoke  with  facility,  and  grappled  with  the  drudgery  of  committees 
during  his  first  two  years  at  Westminster  in  a  way  to  win  him  the 
favourable  attention  of  the  Tory  whips.  He  had  a  gift  for  modern 
languages,  and  spoke  chiefly  on  foreign  affairs,  so  that  when  an 
important  Eastern  Commission  had  to  be  appointed,  in  connection 
with  some  troubles  in  the  Balkan  States,  his  merits  and  his  father's 
exertions  with  certain  old  family  friends  sufficed  to  place  him 
upon  it. 

The  Commission  was  headed  by  a  remarkable  man,  and  was 
able  to  do  valuable  work  at  a  moment  of  great  public  interest, 
under  the  eyes  of  Europe.  Its  members  came  back  covered  with 
distinction,  and  were  much  feted  through  the  London  season.  Old 
JNIr.  Boyce  came  up  from  ]\Iellor  to  see  Dick's  success  for  himseK, 
and  his  rubicund  counti-y  gentleman's  face  and  white  head  might 
have  been  observed  at  many  a  London  party  beside  the  small 
Italianate  physique  of  his  son. 

And  love,  as  he  is  wont,  came  in  the  wake  of  fortune.  A  cer- 
tain fresh  west-country  girl,  Miss  Evelyn  Merritt,  who  had  shown 
her  stately  beauty  at  one  of  the  earliest  drawing-rooms  of  the 
season,  fell  across  Mr.  Richard  Boyce  at  this  moment  when  he  was 
most  at  ease  with  the  world,  and  the  world  was  giving  him  every 
ojiportunity.  She  was  very  young,  as  unspoilt  as  the  daffodils  of 
her  Somersetshire  valleys,  and  her  character  — -  a  character  of  much 
complexity  and  stoical  strength — was  little  more  known  to  herself 
than  it  was  to  others.  She  saw  Dick  Boyce  through  a  mist  of 
romance ;  forgot  herself  absolutely  in  idealising  him,  and  could 
have  thanked  him  on  her  knees  when  he  asked  her  to  marry  him. 

Five  years  of  Parliament  and  marriage  followed,  and  then  —  a 
crash.  It  was  a  common  and  sordid  story,  made  tragic  by  the 
quality  of  the  wife,  and  the  disappointment  of  the  father,  if  not 
by   the   ruined   possibilities   of  Dick   Boyce   himself.     First,   the 


CHA1-.  vr  MARCELLA  55 

desire  to  maintain  a  "position,"  to  nialve  play  in  society  with  a 
pi'etty  wife,  and,  in  the  City,  with  a  marketable  reputation  ;  then 
company-promoting  of  a  more  and  more  donbtful  kind;  and, 
finally,  a  swindle  more  energetic  and  less  skilful  than  the  rest, 
which  bomb-like  went  to  pieces  in  the  face  of  the  public,  filling 
the  air  with  noise,  lamentations,  and  unsavoury  odours.  Nor  was 
this  all.  A  man  has  many  warnings  of  ruin,  and  when  things 
were  going  badly  in  the  stock  market,  Richard  Boyce,  who  on  his 
return  from  the  East  had  been  elected  liy  acclamation  a  member 
of  several  fashionable  clubs,  tried  to  retrieve  himself  at  the 
gaming-table.  Lastly,  when  money  matters  at  home  and  abroad, 
when  the  anxieties  of  his  wife  and  the  altered  manners  of  his 
acquaintance  in  and  out  of  the  House  of  Commons  grew  more 
than  usually  disagreeable,  a  certain  little  chorus  girl  came  upon 
the  scene  and  served  to  make  both  money  and  repentance  scarcer 
even  than  they  were  before.  No  story  could  be  more  common- 
place or  more  detestable. 

"Ah,  how  well  I  remember  that  poor  old  fellow — old  John 
Boyce,"  said  Lord  Maxwell,  slowly,  shaking  his  stately  white  head 
over  it,  as  he  leant  talking  and  musing  against  the  mantelpiece. 
•"  I  saw  him  the  day  he  came  back  from  the  attempt  to  hush  up 
the  company  business.  I  met  him  in  the  road,  and  could  not  help 
pulling  up  to  speak  to  him.  I  was  so  sorry  for  him.  We  had 
been  friends  for  many  years,  he  and  I.  '  Oh,  good  God  ! '  he  said, 
when  he  saw  me.  'Don't  stop  me — don't  speak  to  me!'  And 
he  lashed  his  horse  up  —  as  white  as  a  sheet  —  fat,  fresh-coloured 
man  that  he  was  in  general —  and  was  off.  I  never  saw  him  again 
till  after  his  death.  First  came  the  trial,-  and  Dick  Boyce  got 
three  months'  imprisonment,  on  a  minor  count,  while  several 
others  of  the  precious  lot  he  was  mixed  up  with  came  in  for  penal 
servitude.  There  was  some  technical  flaw  in  the  evidence  with 
regard  to  him,  and  the  clever  lawyers  they  put  on  made  the  most 
of  it ;  but  we  all  thought,  and  society  thought,  that  Dick  was 
morally  as  bad  as  any  of  them.  Then  the  papers  got  hold  of  the 
gambling  debts  and  the  woman.  She  made  a  disturbance  at  his 
club,  I  believe,  during  the  trial,  while  he  was  out  on  bail  —  anyway 
it  all  came  out.  Two  or  three  other  people  were  implicated  in  the 
gambling  business  —  men  of  good  family.  Altogether  it  was  one 
of  the  biggest  scandals  I  remember  in  my  time." 

The  old  man  paused,  the  long  frowning  face  sternly  set.  Aldous 
gazed  at  him  in  silence.  It  was  certainly  pretty-bad  — worse  than 
he  had  thought. 

"  And  the  wife  and  child? "  he  said  presently. 

"  Oh,  poor  things  !  "  —  said  Lord  Maxwell,  forgetting  everything 
for  the  moment  but  his  story  —  "  when  Boyce's  imprisonment  wa.-; 


56  MARCELLA  book  i 

up  they  disappeared  with  him.  His  constituents  held  indignation 
meetings,  of  course.  He  gave  up  his  seat,  and  his  father  allowed 
liim  a  small  fixed  income  —  she  had  besides  some  little  money  of 
her  own  —  which  was  secured  him  afterwards,  I  believe,  on  the 
estate  during  his  brother's  lifetime.  Some  of  her  people  would 
have  gladly  persuaded  her  to  leave  him,  for  his  behaviour  towards 
her  had  been  particularly  odious,  —  and  they  were  afraid,  too,  I 
think,  that  he  might  come  to  worse  grief  yet  and  make  her  life 
unbearable.  But  she  wouldn't.  And  she  would  have  no  sympathy 
and  no  talk.  I  never  saw  her  after  the  first  year  of  their  marriage, 
when  she  was  a  most  radiant  and  beautiful  creature.  But,  by  all 
accounts  of  her  behaviour  at  the  time,  she  must  be  a  remarkable 
woman.  One  of  her  family  told  me  that  she  broke  with  all  of 
them.  She  would  know  nobody  who  would  not  know  him.  Nor 
would  she  take  money,  though  they  were  wretchedly  poor;  and 
Dick  Boyce  was  not  squeamish.  She  went  off  to  little  lodgings  in 
the  country  or  abroad  with  him  without  a  word.  At  the  same 
time,  it  was  plain  that  her  life  was  withered.  She  could  make  one 
great  effort ;  but,  according  to  my  informant,  she  had  no  energy 
left  for  anything  else  —  not  even  to  take  interest  in  her  little 
girl  —  " 

Aldous  made  a  movement. 

"  Suppose  we  talk  about  her  ?  "  he  said  rather  shortly. 

Lord  Maxwell  started  and  recollected  himself.  After  a  pause 
he  said,  looking  down  under  his  spectacles  at  his  grandson  with  an 
expression  in  wliich  discomfort  strove  with  humour  — 

"  I  see.  You  think  we  are  beating  about  the  bush.  Perhaps 
we  are.  It  is  the  diiference  between  being  old  and  being  young, 
Aldous,  my  boy.  Well  —  now  then  —  for  Miss  Boyce.  How  much 
have  you  seen  of  her  ?  —  how  deep  has  it  gone  ?  You  can't  wonder 
that  I  am  knocked  over.  To  bring  that  man  amongst  us !  Why, 
the  hound  !  "  cried  the  old  man,  suddenly,  "  we  could  not  even  get 
him  to  come  and  see  his  father  when  he  was  dying.  John  had  lost 
his  memory  mostly  —  had  forgotten,  anyway,  to  be  angry  —  and 
just  c7-aced  for  Dick,  for  the  only  creature  he  had  ever  loved.  With 
great  difficulty  I  traced  the  man,  and  tried  my  utmost.  No  good! 
He  came  when  his  father  no  longer  knew  him,  an  hour  before  the 
end.  His  nerves,  I  understood,  were  delicate  —  not  so  delicate, 
however,  as  to  prevent  his  being  present  at  the  reading  of  the  will ! 
I  have  never  forgiven  him  that  cruelty  to  the  old  man,  and  never 
will ! " 

And  Lord  Maxwell  began  to  pace  the  library  again,  by  way  of 
working  off  memory  and  indignation. 

Aldous  watched  him  rather  gloomily.  They  had  now  been  dis- 
cussing Boyce's  criminalities  in  great  detail  for  a  considerable  time, 


CHAP.  Ti  MARCELLA  57 

and  nothing  else  seemed  to  have  any  power  to  touch  —  or,  at  any 
rate,  to  hold  —  Lord  Maxwell's  attention.  A  certain  deep  pride  in 
Aldous  —  the  pride  of  intimate  affection  —  felt  itself  wounded. 

"  I  see  that  you  have  grave  cause  to  think  badly  of  her  father," 
he  said  at  last,  rising  as  he  spoke.  "  I  must  think  how  it  concerns 
me.  And  to-morrow  you  must  let  me  tell  you  something  about 
her.  After  all,  she  has  done  none  of  these  things.  But  I  ought 
not  to  keep  you  up  like  this.  You  will  remember  Clarke  was  very 
emphatic  about  your  not  exhausting  yourself  at  night,  last  time 
he  was  here." 

Lord  Maxwell  turned  and  stared. 

"Why — why,  what  is  the  matter  with  you,  Aldous?  Offended? 
Well  —  well  —     There  —  I  am  an  old  fool !  " 

And,  walking  up  to  his  grandson,  he  laid  an  affectionate  and 
rather  shaking  hand  on  the  younger's  shoulder. 

"  You  have  a  great  charge  upon  you,  Aldous  —  a  charge  for  the 
future.  It  has  upset  me  —  I  shall  be  calmer  to-morrow.  But  as  to 
any  quarrel  between  us  !  Are  you  a  youth,  or  am  I  a  three-tailed 
bashaw  ?  As  to  money,  you  know,  I  cai-e  nothing.  But  it  goes 
against  me,  my  boy,  it  goes  against  me,  that  your  Wife  should  bring 
such  a  story  as  that  with  her  into  this  house  !  " 

"  I  understand,"  said  Aldous,  wincing,  "  But  you  must  see  her, 
gTandfathgr.  Only,  let  me  say  it  again — don't  for  one  moment 
take  it  for  granted  that  she  will  marry  me.  I  never  saw  any  one 
so  free,  so  unspoilt,  so  unconventional." 

His  eyes  glowed  with  the  j)leasure  of  remembering  her  looks, 
her  tones. 

Lord  Maxwell  withdrew  his  hand  and  shook  his  head  slowly. 

"  You  have  a  great  deal  to  offer.  No  woman,  unless  she  were 
either  foolish  or  totally  unexperienced,  could  overlook  that.  Is  she 
about  twenty  ?  " 

"  About  twenty." 

Lord  Maxwell  waited  a  moment,  then,  bending  over  the  fire, 
shrugged  his  shoulders  in  mock  despair. 

"  It  is  evident  you  are  out  of  love  with  me,  Aldous.  Why,  I 
don't  know  yet  whether  she  is  dark  or  fair  !  " 

The  conversation  jarred  on  both  sides.    Aldous  made  an  effort. 

"  She  is  very  dark,"  he  said ;  "  like  her  mother  in  many  ways, 
only  quite  different  in  colour.  To  me  she  seems  the  most  beautiful 
—  the  only  beautiful  woman  I  have  ever  seen.  I  should  think  she 
was  very  clever  in  some  ways — and  very  unformed  —  childish 
almost  —  in  others.  The  Hardens  say  she  has  done  everything 
she  could  —  of  course  it  isn't  much  —  for  that  miserable  village  in 
the  time  she  has  been  there.  Oh !  by  the  way,  she  is  a  Socialist. 
She  thinks  that  all  we  landowners  should  be  done  away  with." 


58  MARCELLA  hook  i 

Aldous  looked  round  at  his  grandfather,  so  soon  probably  to  be 
one  of  the  lights  of  a  Tory  Cabinet,  and  laughed.  So,  to  his  relief, 
did  Lord  Maxwell. 

"  Well,  don't  let  her  fall  into  young  Wharton's  clutches,  Aldous, 
or  he  will  be  setting  her  to  canvass.  So,  she  is  beautiful  and  she  is 
clever  —  and  good,  my  boy?  If  she  comes  here,  she  will  have  to 
£11  your  mother's  and  your  grandmother's  place." 

Aldous  tried  to  reply  once  or  twice,  but  failed. 

'•  If  I  did  not  feel  that  she  were  everything  in  herself  to  be  loved 
and  respected  "  — ^he  said  at  last  with  some  formality —  "I  should 
not  long,  as  I  do,  to  bring  you  and  her  together." 

Silence  fell  again.  But  instinctively  Aldous  felt  that  his  grand- 
father's mood  had  grown  gentler  —  his  own  task  easier.  He  seized 
on  the  moment  at  once. 

"  In  the  whole  business,"  he  said,  half  smiling,  "  there  is  only 
one  thing  clear,  grandfather,  and  that  is,  that,  if  you  will,  you  can 
do  me  a  great  service  with  Miss  Boyce." 

Lord  Maxwell  turned  quickly  and  was  all  sharp  attention,  the 
keen  commanding  eyes  under  their  fine  brows  absorbing,  as  it 
were,  expression  and  life  from  the  rest  of  the  blanched  and  wrin- 
kled face. 

"  You  could,  if  you  would,  make  matters  easy  for  her  and  her 
mother  in  the  county,"  said  Aldous,  anxious  to  carry  it  off  lightly. 
"  You  could,  if  you  would,  without  committing  yourself  to  any 
personal  contact  with  Boyce  himself,  make  it  possible  for  me  to 
bring  her  here,  so  that  you  and  my  aunt  might  see  her  and  judge." 

The  old  man's  expression  darkened. 

"  What,  take  back  that  note,  Aldous !  I  never  wrote  anything 
with  greater  satisfaction  in  my  life !  " 

"  Well,  —  moi'e  or  less,"  said  Aldous,  quietly.  "  A  very  little 
would  do  it.  A  man  in  Richard  Boyce's  position  will  naturally 
not  claim  very  much  —  will  take  what  he  can  get." 

"  And  you  mean  besides,'  said  his  grandfather,  interrupting 
him,  "  that  I  must  send  your  aunt  to  call?" 

"  It  will  hardly  be  possible  to  ask  Miss  Boyce  here  unless  she 
does ! "  said  Aldous. 

"  And  you  reckon  that  I  am  not  likely  to  go  to  Mellor,  even  to 
see  her?  And  you  want  me  to  say  a  word  to  other  people  —  to 
the  Winterbournes  and  the  Levens,  for  instance?  " 

"  Precisely,"  said  Aldous. 

Lord  Maxwell  meditated  ;  then  rose. 

"  Let  me  now  appease  the  memory  of  Clarke  by  going  to  bed !  " 
(Clarke  was  his  lordship's  medical  attendant  and  autocrat.)  "I 
must  sleep  upon  this,  Aldous." 

••  I  only  hope  I  shall  not  have  tired  you  out." 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  59 

Aldoiis  moved  to  extinguish  a  lamp  standiug  on  a  table  near. 

Suddenly  his  grandfather  called  him. 

"  Aldous ! " 

"  Yes." 

But,  as  no  words  followed,  Aldous  turned.  He  saw  his  grand- 
father standing  erect  before  the  fire,  and  was  startled  by  the  emo- 
tion he  Instantly  perceived  in  eye  and  mouth. 

"You  understand,  Aldous,  that  for  twenty  years  —  it  is  twenty 
years  last  month  since  your  father  died  —  j'ou  have  been  the  bless- 
ing of  my  life?  Oh!  don't  say  anything,  my  boy;  I  don't  want 
any  more  agitation.  I  have  spoken  strongly  ;  it  was  hardly  possi- 
ble but  that  on  such  a  matter  I  should  feel  sti'ongiy.  But  don't 
go  away  misunderstanding  me  —  don't  imagine  for  one  instant 
that  there  is  anything  in  the  world  that  really  matters  to  me  in 
comparison  with  your  happiness  and  your  future  !  " 

The  venerable  old  man  wrung  the  hand  he  held,  walked  (juickly 
to  the  door,  and  shut  it  behind  him. 

An  hour  later,  Aldous  was  writing  in  his  own  sitting-room,  a 
room  on  the  first  floor,  at  the  western  corner  of  the  house,  and 
commanding  by  daylight  the  falling  slopes  of  wood  below  the 
Court,  and  all  the  wide  expanses  of  the  plain.  To-night,  too,  the 
blinds  wei'e  up,  and  the  great  view  drawn  in  black  and  pearl, 
streaked  with  white  mists  in  the  ground  hollows  and  overarched 
by  a  wide  sky  holding  a  haloed  moon,  lay  spread  before  the  win- 
dows. On  a  clear  night  Aldous  felt  himself  stifled  by  blinds  and 
curtains,  and  would  often  sit  late,  reading  and  writing,  with  a 
lamji  so  screened  that  it  threw  light  upon  his  book  or  paper,  while 
not  interfering  with  the  full  range  of  his  eye  over  the  night-world 
without,  lie  secretly  believed  that  human  beings  see  far  too  little 
of  the  night,  and  so  lose  a  host  of  august  or  beautiful  impressions, 
which  might  be  honestly  theirs  if  they  pleased,  without  borrowing 
or  stealing  from  anybody,  poet  or  painter. 

The  room  was  lined  with  books,  partly  temporary  visitors  from 
the  great  library  downstairs,  partly  his  old  college  books  and 
prizes,  and  partly  representing  small  collections  for  special  studies. 
Here  were  a  large  number  of  volumes,  blue  books,  and  pamphlets, 
bearing  on  the  condition  of  agriculture  and  the  rural  poor  in 
England  and  abroad ;  there  were  some  shelves  devoted  to  general 
economics,  and  on  a  little  table  by  the  fire  lay  the  recent  numbers 
of  various  economic  journals,  English  and  foreign.  Between  the 
windows  stood  a  small  philosophical  bookcase,  the  volumes  of  it 
full  of  small  reference  slips,  and  marked  from  end  to  end ;  and  on 
the  other  side  of  the  room  was  a  revolving  book-table  crowded  with 
miscellaneous  volumes.  q£  poets,  critics,  and   novelists  —  mainly, 


60  MAKCELLA  book  i 

however,  with  the  first  two.  Aldous  Raeburii  read  few  novels, 
and  those  with  a  certain  impatience.  His  mind  was  mostly  en- 
gaged in  a  slow  wrestle  with  difficult  and  unmanageable  fact ; 
and  for  that  transformation  and  illumination  of  fact  in  which  the 
man  of  idealist  temper  must  sometimes  take  refuge  and  comfort, 
he  went  easily  and  eagerly  to  the  poets  and  to  natural  beauty. 
Hardly  any  novel  writing,  or  reading,  seemed  to  him  worth  while- 
A  man,  he  thought,  might  be  much  better  employed  than  in  doing 
either. 

Above  the  mantelpiece  was  his  mother's  j)icture  —  the  picture  of 
a  young  woman  in  a  low  dress  and  muslin  scarf,  trivial  and  em2:)ty 
in  point  of  art,  yet  linked  in  Aldous's  mind  with  a  hundred  touching 
recollections,  buried  all  of  them  in  the  silence  of  an  unbroken  re- 
serve. She  had  died  in  childbirth  when  he  w^as  nine ;  her  baby 
had  died  with  her,  and  her  husband.  Lord  Maxwell's  only  son  and 
surviving  child,  fell  a  victim  two  years  later  to  a  deadly  form  of 
throat  disease,  one  of  those  ills  which  come  upon  strong  men  by 
surprise,  and  excite  in  the  dying  a  sense  of  helpless  wrong  which 
even  religious  faith  can  only  partially  soothe. 

Aldous  remembered  his  mother's  death  ;  still  more  his  father's, 
that  father  who  could  speak  no  last  message  to  his  son,  could  only 
lie  dumb  upon  his  pillows,  with  those  eyes  full  of  incommunicable 
pain,  and  the  hand  now  restlessly  seeking,  now  restlessly  putting 
aside  the  small  and  trembling  hand  of  the  son.  His  boyhood  had 
been  spent  under  the  shadow  of  these  events,  which  had  aged  Ids 
grandfather,  and  made  him  too  early  realise  himself  as  standing- 
alone  in  the  gap  of  loss,  the  only  hope  left  to  affection  and  to  ambi- 
tion. This  premature  development,  anud  the  most  melancholy 
surroundings,  of  the  sense  of  personal  importance  —  not  in  any 
egotistical  sense,  but  as  a  sheer  matter  of  fact  —  had  robbed  a 
nervous  and  sensitive  temperament  of  natural  stores  of  gaiety  and 
elasticity  which  it  could  ill  do  without.  Aldous  Raeburu  had 
been  too  much  thought  for  aitd  too  painfully  loved.  But  for 
Edward  Hallin  he  might  well  have  acquiesced  at  manhood  in  a 
certain  impaired  vitality,  in  the  scholar's  range  of  pleasures,  and 
the  landowner's  customary  rovmd  of  duties. 

It  was  to  Edward  Hallin  he  was  writing  to-niglit,  for  the  stress 
and  stir  of  feeling  caused  by  the  events  of  the  day,  and  not  least 
by  his  grandfather's  outburst,  seemed  to  put  sleep  far  off.  On  the 
table  before  him  stood  a  photograph  of  Hallin,  besides  a  minia- 
ture of  his  mother  as  a  girl.  He  had  drawn  the  miniature  closer 
to  him,  finding  sympathy  and  joy  in  its  youth,  in  the  bright  ex- 
pectancy of  the  eyes,  and  so  wrote,  as  it  were,  having  both  her  and 
his  friend  in  mind  and  sight. 

To  Hallin  he  had  already  spoken  of  Miss  Boyce,  drawing  her 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  61 

in  light,  casual,  and  yet  sympathetic  strokes  as  the  pretty  girl  in 
a  difficult  position  whom  one  would  watch  with  curiosity  and 
some  pity.  To-night  his  letter,  which  should  have  discussed  a 
home  colonisation  scheme  of  Hallin's,  had  but  one  topic,  and  his 
pen  flew. 

"  Would  you  call  her  beautiful?  I  ask  myself  again  and  again, 
trying  to  put  myself  behind  your  eyes.  She  has  nothing,  at  any 
rate,  in  common  with  the  beauties  we  have  down  here,  or  with 
tliose  my  aunt  bade  me  admire  in  London  last  May.  The  face 
has  a  strong  Italian  look,  but  not  Italian  of  to^ay.  Do  you 
remember  the  Ghirlandajo  frescoes  in  Santa  Maria  Novella,  or 
the  side  groups  in  Andrea's  frescoes  at  the  Annunziata  ?  Among 
them,  among  the  beautiful  tall  women  of  them,  there  are,  I  am 
sure,  noble,  freely-poised,  suggestive  heads  like  hers  —  hair,  black 
wavy  hair,  folded  like  hers  in  large  simple  lines,  and  faces  with 
the  same  long,  subtle  curves.  It  is  a  face  of  the  Renaissance, 
extraordinarily  beautiful,  as  it  seems  to  me,  in  colour  and  expres- 
sion ;  imperfect  in  line,  as  the  beauty  which  marks  the  meeting 
point  between  antique  perfection  and  modern  character  must 
always  be.  It  has  movhidezza  —  unquiet  melancholy  charm,  then 
passionate  gaiety  —  everything  that  is  most  modern  grafted  on 
things  Greek  and  old.  I  am  told  that  Bui'ne  Jones  drew  her 
several  times  while  she  was  in  London,  with  delight.  It  is  the 
most  artistic  beauty,  having  both  the  harmonies  and  the  disso- 
nances that  a  full-grown  art  loves. 

"  She  may  be  twenty  or  rather  more.  The  mind  has  all  sorts  of 
ability ;  conies  to  the  right  conclusion  by  a  divine  instinct,  ignoi'- 
ing  the  how  and  why.  What  does  such  a  being  want  with  the 
drudgery  of  learning  ?  to  such  keenness  life  will  be  master  enough. 
Yet  she  has  evidently  read  a  good  deal  —  much  poetry,  some  scat- 
tered political  economy,  some  modern  socialistic  books,  IMatthew 
Arnold,  Ruskin,  Carlyle.  She  takes  everything  dramatically,  im- 
aginatively, goes  straight  from  it  to  life,  and  back  again.  Among 
the  young  people  with  whom  she  made  acquaintance  while  she  was 
boarding  in  London  and  working  at  South  Kensington,  there 
seem  to  have  been  two  brothers,  both  artists,  and  both  Socialists ; 
ardent  young  fellows,  giving  all  their  spare  time  to  good  works, 
who  must  have  influenced  her  a  great  deal.  She  is  full  of  angers 
and  revolts,  which  you  would  delight  in.  And  first  of  all,  she  is 
applying  herself  to  her  father's  wretched  village,  which  will  keep 
her  hands  full.  A  large  and  passionate  humanity  plays  about 
her.  What  she  says  often  seems  to  me  foolish  —  in  the  ear;  but 
the  inner  sense,  the  heart  of  it,  command  me. 

"Stare  as  you  please,  Ned!  Only  write  to  me,  and  come  down 
here  as  soon  as  you  can.     I  can  and  will  hide  nothing  from  you, 


62  MARCELLA  book  i 

so  you  will  believe  me  when  I  say  that  all  is  uncertain,  that  I 
know  nothing,  and,  thoiigh  I  hope  everything,  may  just  as  well 
fear  everything  too.  But  somehow  I  am  another  man,  and  the 
world  shines  and  glows  for  me  by  day  and  night." 

Aldous  Raeburn  rose  from  his  chair  and,  going  to  the  window, 
stood  looking  out  at  the  splendour  of  the  autumn  moon.  Mar- 
cella  moved  across  the  whiteness  of  the  grass ;  her  voice  was  still 
speaking  to  his  inward  ear.  His  lips  smiled ;  his  heart  was  in  a 
wild  whirl  of  happiness. 

Then  he  walked  to  the  table,  took  up  his  letter,  read  it,  tore  it 
across,  and  locked  the  fragments  in  a  drawer, 

"Not  yet,  Ned  —  not  yet,  dear  old  fellow,  even  to  you,"  he  said 
to  himself,  as  he  put  out  his  lamp. 


CHAPTER  Vn 

Three  days  passed.  On  the  fourth  Mai'cella  returned  late  in 
the  afternoon  from  a  round  of  parish  visits  with  Mary  Harden. 
As  she  opened  the  oak  doors  which  shut  off  the  central  hall  of 
Mellor  from  the  outer  vestibule,  she  saw  something  white  lying  on 
the  old  cut  and  disused  billiard  table,  which  still  occupied  the  mid- 
dle of  the  floor  till  Richard  Boyce,  in  the  course  of  liis  economies 
and  improvements,  could  replace  it  by  a  new  one. 

She  ran  forward  and  took  up  a  sheaf  of  cards,  turning  them  over 
in  a  smiling  excitement.  "  Viscount  Maxwell,"  "  Mr.  Uaeburn," 
"Miss  Raeburn,"  "Lady  Winterbourne  and  the  INIisses  Winter- 
bourne,"  two  cards  of  Lord  Winterbourne's  —  all  perfectly  in 
form. 

Then  a  thought  flashed  upon  her.  "  Of  course  it  is  his  doing  — 
and  I  asked  him  !  " 

The  cards  dropped  from  her  hand  on  the  billiard  table,  and  she 
stood  looking  at  them,  her  pride  fighting  with  her  pleasure.  There 
was  something  else  iu  her  feeling  too  —  the  exultation  of  proved 
power  over  a  person  not,  as  she  guessed,  easily  influenced,  espe- 
cially by  women. 

"Marcella,  is  that  you?" 

It  was  her  mother's  voice.  Mrs.  Boyce  had  come  in  from  the 
garden  through  the  drawing-room,  and  was  standing  at  the  inner 
door  of  the  hall,  trying  with  shortsighted  eyes  to  distinguish  her 
daughter  among  the  shadows  of  the  great  bare  place.  A  dark  day 
was  drawing  to  its  close,  and  there  was  little  light  left  in  the  hall 
except  in  one  corner  where  a  rainy  sunset  gleam  struck  a  grim 
contemporary  portrait  of  Mary  Tudor,  bringing  out  the  obstinate 
mouth  and  the  white  hand  holding  a  jewelled  glove. 


CHAP.  VII  MARCELLA  63 

Marcella  turned,  and  by  the  same  gleam  her  mother  saw  her 
flushed  and  animated  look. 

"Any  letters?"  she  asked. 

"No;  but  there  are  some  cards.  Oh  yes,  there  is  a  note,"  and 
she  pounced  upon  an  envelope  she  had  overlooked.  "  It  is  for 
you,  mother — from  the  Court." 

Mrs.  Boyce  came  up  and  took  note  and  cards  from  her  daugh- 
ter's hand.     Marcella  watched  her  with  quick  breath. 

Iler  mother  looked  through  the  cards,  slowly  putting  them  down 
one  by  one  without  remark. 

"Oh,  mother!  do  read  the  note!"  Marcella  could  not  help 
entreating. 

Mrs.  Boyce  drew  herself  together  with  a  quick  movement  as 
though  her  daughter  jarred  upon  her,  and  opened  the  note.  INIar- 
cella  dared  not  look  over  her.  There  was  a  dignity  about  her 
mother's  lightest  action,  about  every  movement  of  her  slender 
fingers  and  fine  fair  head,  which  had  always  held  the  daughter 
in  check,  even  while  she  rebelled. 

Mrs,  Boyce  read  it,  and  then  handed  it  to  Marcella. 

"  I  must  go  and  make  the  tea,"  she  said,  in  a  light,  cold  tone, 
and  turning,  she  went  back  to  the  drawing-room,  whither  after- 
noon tea  had  just  been  carried. 

Marcella  followed,  reading.  The  note  was  from  Miss  llaeburn, 
and  it  contained  an  invitation  to  Mrs.  Boyce  and  her  daughter 
to  take  luncheon  at  the  Court  on  the  following  Friday.  The  note 
was  courteously  and  kindly  worded.  "  We  should  be  so  glad," 
said  the  writei',  "  to  show  you  and  Miss  Boyce  our  beautiful  woods 
while  they  are  still  at  their  best,  in  the  way  of  autumn  colour." 

"  How  will  inamma  take  it  ? "  thought  Marcella,  anxiously. 
"  There  is  not  a  word  of  papa !  " 

When  she  entered  the  drawing-room,  she  caught  her  mother 
standing  absently  at  the  tea-table.  The  little  silver  caddy  was 
still  in  her  hand  as  though  she  had  forgotten  to  put  it  down  ;  and 
her  eyes,  which  evidently  saw  nothing,  were  turned  to  the  win- 
dow, the  brows  frowning.  The  look  of  suffering  for  an  instant 
was  unmistakable;  then  she  started  at  the  sound  of  Marcella's 
step,  and  put  down  the  caddy  amid  the  delicate  china  crowded  on 
the  tray,  with  all  the  quiet  precision  of  her  ordinary  manner. 

"You  will  have  to  wait  for  your  tea,"  she  said,  "the  water 
doesn't  nearly  boil." 

Marcella  went  up  to  the  fire  and,  kneeling  before  it,  put  the  logs 
with  Avhich  it  was  piled  together.  But  she  coiild  not  contain  her- 
self for  long. 

"Will  you  go  to  the  Court,  mamma?"  she  asked  quickly,  witli- 
out  turnino-  round. 


64  MARC  ELLA  book  i 

There  was  a  pause.     Then  Mrs.  Boyce  said  drily  — 

"  Miss  Raeburn's  proceedings  are  a  little  unexpected.  We  have 
been  here  four  months,  within  two  miles  of  her,  and  it  has  never 
occurred  to  her  to  call.  Now  she  calls  and  asks  us  to  luncheon  in 
the  same  afternoon.  Either  she  took  too  little  notice  of  us  before, 
or  she  takes  too  much  now  —  don't  you  think  so  ?  " 

Marcella  was  silent  a  moment.  Should  she  confess?  It  Ipegan 
to  occur  to  her  for  the  first  time  that  in  her  wild  independence  she 
had  been  taking  liberties  with  her  mother. 

"  Mamma !  " 

"  Yes." 

"  I  asked  Mr.  Aldous  Raeburn  the  other  day  whether  everybody 
here  was  going  to  cut  us  !  Papa  told  me  that  Lord  Maxwell  had 
written  him  an  uncivil  letter  and  —  " 

"  You  —  asked  —  Mr.  Raeburn  —  "  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  quickly. 
"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

Marcella  turned  round  and  met  the  flash  of  her  mother's  eyes. 

"  I  couldn't  help  it,"  she  said  in  a  low  hurried  voice.  "  It  seemed 
so  horrid  to  feel  everybody  standing  aloof  —  we  were  walking- 
together  —  he  was  very  kind  and  friendly  —  and  I  asked  him  to 
explain." 

"I  see!"  said  IMrs.  Boyce.  "And  he  went  to  his  aunt  —  and 
she  went  to  Lady  Winterbourne  —  they  were  compassionate  —  and 
there  are  the  cards.  You  have  certainly  taken  us  all  in  hand, 
Marcella!" 

Marcella  felt  an  instant's  fear  —  fear  of  the  ironic  power  in  the 
sparkling  look  so  keenly  fixed  on  her  offending  self ;  she  shrank 
before  the  proud  reserve  expressed  in  eveiy  line  of  her  mother's 
fragile  imperious  beauty.  Then  a  cry  of  nature  broke  from  the 
girl. 

"  You  have  got  used  to  it,  mamma !  I  feel  as  if  it  would  kill  me 
to  live  here,  shut  ott"  from  everybody  —  joining  with  nobody  — 
with  no  friendly  feelings  or  society.  It  was  bad  enough  in  the  old 
lodging-house  days;  bvit  here  —  why  should  we?" 

Mrs.  Boyce  had  certainly  grown  pale. 

"  I  supposed  you  Avould  ask  sooner  or  later,"  she  said  in  a  low 
determined  voice,  with  what  to  Marcella  was  a  qvxite  new  note  of 
reality  in  it.  "Probably  Mr.  Raeburn  told  you  —  but  yoii  must  of 
course  have  guessed  it  long  ago  —  that  society  does  not  look  kindly 
on  us  —  and  has  its  reasons.  I  do  not  deny  in  the  least  that  it  has 
its  reasons.  I  do  not  accuse  anybody,  and  resent  nothing.  But 
the  question  with  me  has  always  been,  Shall  I  accej)t  pity  ?  I  have 
always  been  able  to  meet  it  with  a  No!  You  are  very  different 
from  me  —  but  for  you  also  I  believe  it  would  be  the  happiest 
answer." 


CHAP.  VII  MARCELLA  65 

The  eyes  of  both  met  —  the  mother's  full  of  an  indomitable  fire 
which  had  for  ouce  wholly  swept  away  her  satiric  calm  of  every 
day ;  the  daughter's  troubled  and  miserable. 

"  I  want  friends  1 "  said  JNIarcella,  slowly.  "  There  are  so  many 
things  I  want  to  do  here,  and  one  can  do  notiiing  if  every  one  is 
against  you.  People  would  be  friends  with  you  and  me  —  and 
with  papa  too,  —  through  us.  Some  of  them  wish  to  be  kind  "  — 
she  added  insistently,  thinking  of  Aldous  Raeburn's  words  and 
expression  as  he  bent  to  her  at  the  gate  —  "I  know  they  do.  And 
if  we  can't  hold  our  heads  high  because  —  because  of  things  in  the 
past  —  ought  we  to  be  so  proud  that  we  won't  take  their  hands 
when  they  stretch  them  out  —  when  they  write  so  kindly  and 
nicely  as  this?" 

And  she  laid  her  fingers  almost  piteously  on  the  note  upon  her 
knee. 

JVIrs.  Boyce  tilted  the  silver  urn  and  replenished  the  tea-pot. 
Then  with  a  delicate  handkerchief  she  rubbed  away  a  spot  fi'om 
the  handle  of  a  spoon  near  her. 

"You  shall  go,"  she  said  presently  —  " you  wish  it  —  then  go  — 
go  by  all  means.  I  will  write  to  Miss  Raehurn  and  send  you  over 
in  the  carriage.  One  can  put  a  great  deal  on  health  —  mine  is 
quite  serviceable  in  the  way  of  excuses.  I  will  try  and  do  you  no 
harm,  ISIarcella.  If  you  have  chosen  your  line  and  wish  to  make 
friends  here  —  very  well  —  I  will  do  what  I  can  for  you  so  long  as 
you  do  not  expect  me  to  change  my  life  —  for  which,  my  dear,  I 
am  grown  too  crotchety  and  too  old." 

Marcella  looked  at  her  with  dismay  and  a  yearning  she  had 
never  felt  before. 

"And  you  will  never  go  out  with  me,  mamma?" 

There  was  something  childlike  and  touching  in  the  voice,  some- 
tliing  which  for  once  suggested  the  normal  filial  relation.  But 
]\Irs.  Boyce  did  not  waver.  She  had  long  learnt  perhaps  to  regard 
Marcella  as  a  girl  singularly  well  able  to  take  care  of  herself;  and 
iiad  recognised  the  fact  w'ith  relief. 

"  I  will  not  go  to  the  Court  with  you  anyway,"  she  said,  daintily 
sipping  her  tea  —  "  in  your  interests  as  well  as  mine.  You  will  make 
all  the  gi'eater  impression,  my  dear,  for  I  have  really  forgotten  how 
to  behave.  Those  cards  shall  be  properly  returned,  of  course.  For 
the  rest  —  let  no  one  disturb  themselves  till  they  must.  And  if  I 
were  you,  Marcella,  I  would  hardly  discuss  the  family  affau-s  any 
more  —  with  Mr.  Raeburn  or  anybody  else." 

And  again  herlveen  glance  disconcerted  the  tall  handsome  girl, 
whose  power  over  the  world  about  her  had  never  extended  to  her 
mother.     Marcella  flushed  and  played  with  the  fire. 

"You  see,  mamma,"  she  said  after  a  moment,  still  looking  at 

F 


66  MARCELLA  book  i 

the  logs  and  the  shower  of  sparks  they  made  as  she  moved  them 
about,  "you  never  let  me  discuss  them  with  you." 

"  Heaven  forbid !  "  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  quickly ;  then,  after  a  pause : 
"  You  will  find  your  own  line  in  a  little  while,  Marcella,  and  you 
will  see,  if  you  so  choose  it,  tliat  there  will  be  nothing  unsur- 
mountable  in  your  way.  One  piece  of  advice  let  me  give  you. 
Don't  be  too  grateful  to  Miss  Raeburn,  or  anybody  else!  You 
take  great  interest  in  your  Boyce  belongings,  I  perceive.  You 
may  remember  too,  perhaps,  that  there  is  other  blood  in  you  — 
and  that  no  Merritt  has  ever  submitted  quietly  to  either  patronage 
or  pity." 

Marcella  started.  Her  mother  had  never  named  her  own  kin- 
dred to  her  before  that  she  could  remember.  She  had  known  for 
many  years  that  there  was  a  breach  between  the  Merritts  and 
tliemselves.  The  newspapers  had  told  her  something  at  intervals 
of  her  Merritt  relations,  for  they  were  fashionable  and  important 
folk,  but  no  one  of  them  liad  crossed  the  Boyces'  threshold  since 
the  old  London  days,  wherein  Marcella  could  still  dimly  remember 
the  tall  forms  of  certain  Merritt  uncles,  and  even  a  stately  lady  in 
a  white  cap  wliom  she  knew  to  have  been  her  mother's  mother. 
The  stately  lady  had  died  while  she  was  still  a  child  at  her  first 
school ;  she  could  recollect  her  own  mourning  frock ;  but  that  was 
almost  the  last  personal  remembrance  she  had,  connected  with  the 
Merritts. 

And  now  this  note  of  intense  personal  and  family  pride,  under 
which  INIrs.  Boyce's  voice  had  for  the  first  time  quivered  a  little ! 
Marcella  liHd  never  heard  it  before,  and  it  thrilled  her.  She  sat 
on  by  the  fire,  drinking  her  tea  and  every  now  and  then  watch- 
ing her  companion  w'ith  a  new  and  painful  curiosity.  The  tacit 
assumption  of  many  years  with  her  had  been  that  her  mother  was 
a  dry  limited  person,  clever  and  determined  in  small  ways,  that 
affected  her  own  family,  but  on  the  whole  characterless  as  com- 
pared with  other  peojile  of  strong  feelings  and  responsive  suscep- 
tibilities. But  her  own  cliaracter  liad  been  rapidly  maturing  of 
late,  and  her  insight  sharpening.  During  these  I'ecent  weeks  of 
close  contact,  her  mother's  singularity  had  risen  in  her  mind  to  the 
dignity  at  least  of  a  problem,  an  enigma. 

Presently  Mrs.  Boyce  rose  and  put  the  scones  down  by  the  fire. 

"  Your  father  will  be  in,  I  suppose.     Yes,  I  hear  the  front  door." 

As  she  spoke  she  took  off  her  velvet  cloak,  put  it  carefully  aside 
on  a  sofa,  and  sat  down  again,  still  in  her  bonnet,  at  the  tea-table. 
Her  di'ess  was  very  different  from  Marcella's,  Iv^hich,  when  they 
were  not  in  mourning,  was  in  general  of  the  ample  "  aesthetic  " 
type,  and  gave  her  a  good  deal  of  trouble  out  of  doors.  Marcella 
wore  "  art  serges  "  and  velveteens  ;  Mrs.  Boyce  attired  herself  in 


CHAP.  VII  MAECELLA  67 

soft  and  costly  silks,  generally  black,  closely  and  fashionably  made, 
and  completed  by  various  fanciful  and  distinguished  trifles  —  rings, 
an  old  chatelaine,  a  diamond  brooch  —  which  Marcella  remembered, 
the  same,  and  worn  in  the  same  way,  since  her  childhood.  Mrs. 
Boyce,  however,  wore  her  clothes  so  daintily,  and  took  such  scru- 
pulous and  ingenious  care  of  them,  that  her  dress  cost,  in  truth, 
extremely  little  —  certainly  less  than  Marcella's. 

There  were  sounds  first  of  footsteps  in  the  hall,  then  of  some 
scolding  of  William,  and  finally  Mr.  Boyce  entered,  tired  and 
splashed  from  shooting,  and  evidently  in  a  bad  temper. 

"  AVell,  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  those  cards  ?  "  he  asked 
his  wife  abruptly  when  she  had  supplied  him  with  tea,  and  he 
was  beginning  to  dry  by  the  fire.  He  was  feeling  ill  and  reckless  ; 
too  tired  anyway  to  trouble  himself  to  keep  up  appearances  with 
Marcella. 

"  Return  them,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  calmly,  blowing  out  the  flame 
of  her  silver  kettle. 

"  /  don't  want  any  of  their  precious  society,"  he  said  irritably. 
"  They  should  have  done  their  calling  long  ago.  There's  no  grace 
in  it  now;  I  don't  know  that  one  isn't  inclined  to  think  it  an 
intrusion." 

But  the  women  were  silent.  Marcella's  attention  was  diverted 
from  her  mother  to  the  father's  small  dark  head  and  thin  face. 
There  was  a  great  repulsion  and  impatience  in  her  heart,  an  angry 
straining  against  circumstance  and  fate  ;  yet  at  the  same  time  a 
mounting  voice  of  natural  affection,  an  understanding  at  once  sad 
and  new,  which  paralysed  and  silenced  her.     He  stood  in  her  way 

—  terribly  in  her  way  —  and  yet  it  strangely  seemed  to  her,  that 
never  before  till  these  last  few  weeks  had  she  felt  herself  a  daughter. 

"  You  are  very  wet,  papa,"  she  said  to  him  as  she  took  his  cup ; 
"don't  3'ou  think  you  had  better  go  at  once  and  change?" 

"I'm  all  right,"  he  said  shortly  —  "as  right  as  I'm  likely  to  be, 
anyway.  As  for  the  shooting,  it's  nothing  but  waste  of  time  and 
shoe  leather.  I  shan't  go  out  anymore.  The  place  has  been  clean 
swept  by  some  of  those  brutes  in  the  village  —  j'our  friends,  Mar- 
cella. By  the  way,  Evelyn,  I  came  across  young  Wharton  in  the 
road  just  now." 

"Wharton?"  said  his  wife,  interrogatively.     "I  don't  remember 

—  ought  I ?  " 

"Why,  the  Liberal  candidate  for  the  division,  of  course,"  he  said 
testily.  "I  wdsh  you  would  inform  yourself  of  what  goes  on.  He 
is  w'orking  like  a  horse,  he  tells  me.  Dodgson,  the  Raeburns' 
candidate,  has  got  a  great  start ;  this  young  man  will  want  all  his 
time  to  catch  him  up.  I  like  him.  I  won't  vote  for  him  ;  but  I'll 
see  fair  play.     I've  asked  him  to  come  to  tea  here  on  Saturday, 


68  MARCELLA  book  i 

Evelyn.  He'll  be  back  again  by  the  end  of  the  week.  He  stays 
at  Dell's  farm  when  he  conies  —  pretty  bad  accommodation,  I 
should  think.     We  must  show  him  some  civility." 

He  rose  and  stood  with  his  back  to  the  fire,  his  spare  frame 
stilfening  under  his  nervous  determination  to  assert  himself  —  to 
hold  up  his  head  physically  and  morally  against  those  who  would 
repress  him. 

Richard  Boyce  took  his  social  punishment  badly.  He  had 
passed  his  first  weeks  at  INIellor  in  a  tremble  of  desire  that  his 
father's  old  family  and  country  friends  should  recognise  him  again 
and  condone  his  "  irregularities."  All  sorts  of  conciliatory  ideas 
had  passed  through  his  head.  He  meant  to  let  people  see  that  he 
would  be  a  good  neighbour  if  they  would  give  him  the  chance  — • 
not  like  that  miserly  fool,  his  brother  Robert.  The  past  was  so 
much  past;  who  now  was  more  resijectable  or  more  well  inten- 
tioned  than  he  ?  He  was  an  impressionable  imaginative  man  in 
delicate  health ;  and  the  tears  sometimes  came  into  his  eyes  as  he 
pictured  himself  restored  to  society  —  partly  by  his  own  efforts, 
partly,  no  doubt,  by  the  charms  and  good  looks  of  his  wife  and 
daughter  —  forgiven  for  their  sake,  and  for  the  sake  also  of  that 
store  of  virtue  he  had  so  laboriously  accumulated  since  that  long- 
past  catastrophe.  "Would  not  most  men  have  gone  to  the  bad 
altogether,  after  such  a  lapse  ?  He,  on  the  contrary,  had  recovered 
himself,  had  neither  drunk  nor  squandered,  nor  deserted  his  wife 
and  child.  These  things,  if  the  truth  were  known,  w^ere  indeed 
due  rather  to  a  certain  lack  of  physical  energy  and  vitality,  which 
age  had  developed  in  him,  than  to  self-conquest ;  but  he  was  no 
doubt  entitled  to  make  the  most  of  them.  There  were  signs  indeed 
that  his  forecast  had  been  not  at  all  unreasonable.  His  women- 
kind  toere  making  their  way.  At  the  very  moment  when  Lord 
Maxwell  had  written  him  a  quelling  letter,  he  had  become  aware 
that  Marcella  was  on  good  terms  with  Lord  jNIaxwell's  heir.  Had 
he  not  also  been  stoj^ped  that  morning  in  a  remote  lane  by  Lord 
Winterbourne  and  Lord  Maxwell  on  their  way  back  from  the 
meet,  and  had  not  both  recognised  and  shaken  hands  with  him? 
And  now  there  were  these  cards. 

Unfortunately,  in  spite  of  Raeburn's  opinion  to  the  contrary,  no 
man  in  such  a  position  and  with  such  a  temperament  ever  gets 
something  without  claiming  more  —  and  more  than  he  can  con- 
ceivably or  possibly  get.  Startled  and  pleased  at  first  by  the  salu- 
tation which  Lord  Maxwell  and  his  companion  had  bestowed  upon 
him,  Richard  Boyce  had  passed  his  afternoon  in  resenting  and 
brooding  over  the  cold  civility  of  it.  So  these  were  the  terms  he 
was  to  be  on  with  them  —  the  deuce  take  them  and  their  pharisai- 
cal  airs  I     If  all  the  truth  were  known,  most  men  would  look  fool- 


CHAP.  VII  MAKCELLA  69 

ish ;  and  the  meu  who  thanked  God  that  they  were  not  as  other 
-men,  soonest  of  all.  He  wished  he  had  not  been  taken  by  sur- 
prise ;  he  wished  he  had  not  answered  them ;  he  would  show  theiu 
in  the  future  that  he  would  eat  no  dirt  for  them  or  anybody  else. 

So  on  the  way  home  there  had  been  a  particular  zest  in  his  chance 
encounter  with  the  young  man  who  was  likely  to  give  the  Rae- 
burns  and  their  candidate  —  so  all  the  world  said  —  a  very  great 
deal  of  trouble.  The  seat  had  been  held  to  be  an  entirely  safe  one 
for  the  Maxwell  nominee.  Young  Wharton,  on  the  contrary,  was 
making  way  every  day,  and,  what  with  securing  Aldous's  own 
seat  in  the  next  division,  and  helping  old  Dodgson  in  this.  Lord 
JNIaxwell  and  his  grandson  had  their  hands  full.  Dick  Boyce  was 
glad  of  it.  lie  was  a  Tory ;  but  all  the  same  he  wished  every  suc- 
cess to  this  handsome,  agreeable  young  man,  whose  deferential 
manners  to  him  at  the  end  of  the  day  had  come  like  ointment  to 
a  wound. 

The  three  sat  on  together  i<yv  a  little  while  in  silence.  Marcella 
kept  her  seat  hy  the  fire  on  the  old  gilt  fender-stool,  conscious  in  a 
dreamlike  way  of  the  room  in  front  of  her  —  the  stately  room  with 
its  stucco  ceiling,  its  tall  windows,  its  Prussian-blue  wall-paper  be- 
hind the  old  cabinets  and  faded  pictures,  and  the  chair  covers  in 
Turkey-red  twill  against  the  blue,  which  still  remained  to  bear 
witness  at  once  to  the  domestic  economies  and  the  decorative  ideas 
of  old  Robert  Boyce  —  conscious  also  of  the  figures  on  either  side 
of  her,  and  of  her  own  quick-beating  youth  betwixt  them.  She 
was  sore  and  unhappy ;  yet,  on  the  whole,  what  she  was  thinking 
most  about  was  Aldous  Raeburn.  What  had  he  said  to  Lord 
Maxwell?  —  and  to  the  Winterbournes ?  She  wished  she  could 
know.  She  wished  with  leaping  pulse  that  she  could  see  him 
again  quickly.     Yet  it  would  be  awkward  too. 

Presently  she  got  up  and  went  away  to  take  off  her  things.  As 
the  door  closed  behind  her,  Mrs.  Boyce  held  out  Miss  Raeburn's 
note,  which  JNIarcella  had  returned  to  her,  to  her  husband. 

"They  have  asked  Marcella  and  me  to  lunch,"  she  said.  "I  am 
not  going,  but  I  shall  send  her." 

He  read  the  note  by  the  firelight,  and  it  produced  the  most 
contradictory  effects  upon  him. 

"  Why  don't  you  go  V  "  he  asked  her  aggressively,  rousing  himself 
for  a  moment  to  attack  her,  and  so  vent  some  of  his  ill-humour. 

"  I  have  lost  the  habit  of  going  out,"  she  said  quietly,  "  and  am 
too  old  to  begin  again." 

"  What !  you  mean  to  say,"  he  asked  her  angrily,  raising  his 
voice,  "that  you  have  never  meant  to  do  your  duties  here — the 
duties  of  your  position  V  " 


70  MAECELLA  book  i 

"I  did  not  foresee  many,  outside  this  house  and  laud.  ^Vhy 
should  we  change  our  ways?  We  have  done  very  well  of  late.  1 
have  no  mind  to  risk  what  I  have  got." 

He  glanced  round  at  her  in  a  quick  nervous  way,  and  then 
looked  back  again  at  the  fire.  The  sight  of  her  delicate  blanched 
face  had  in  some  respects  a  more  and  more  poignant  power  with 
him  as  the  years  went  on.     His  anger  sank  into  moroseness. 

"  Then  why  do  you  let  Marcella  go  ?  What  good  will  it  do  her 
to  go  about  without  her  parents?  People  will  only  despise  her 
for  a  girl  of  no  spirit  —  as  they  ought." 

"  It  depends  upon  how  it  is  done.  I  can  arrange  it,  I  think," 
said  Mrs.  Boyce.  "  A  woman  has  always  convenient  limitations 
to  plead  in  the  way  of  health.  She  need  never  give  offence  if  she 
has  decent  wits.  It  will  be  understood  that  I  do  not  go  out,  and 
then  some  one  —  Miss  Raeburn  or  Lady  Winterbourne — wiU  take 
up  Marcella  and  mother  her." 

She  spoke  with  her  usual  light 'gentleness,  but  he  was  hot 
appeased. 

"If  you  were  to  talk  of  my  health,  it  would  be  more  to  the  pur- 
pose," he  said,  with  grim  inconsequence.  And  raising  his  heavy 
lids  he  looked  at  her  full. 

She  got  u}?  and  went  over  to  him. 

"  Do  you  feel  worse  again  ?  AVhy  will  you  not  change  your 
things  dii-ectly  you  come  in  ?  ^V^ould  you  like  Dr.  Clarke  sent 
for  ?  " 

She  was  standing  close  beside  him ;  her  beautiful  hand,  for 
which  in  their  young  days  it  had  pleased  his  pride  to  give  her 
rings,  almost  touched  him.  A  passionate  hunger  leapt  within 
him.  She  would  stoop  and  kiss  him  if  he  asked  her;  he  knew 
that.  But  he  would  not  ask  her ;  he  did  not  want  it ;  he  wanted 
something  that  never  on  this  earth  would  she  give  him  again. 

Then  moral  discomfort  lost  itself  in  physical. 

"  Clarke  does  me  no  good  —  not  an  atom,"  he  said,  rising.  "  There 
—  don't  you  come.     I  can  look  after  myself." 

He  went,  and  Mrs.  Boyce  remained  alone  in  the  great  fire-lit 
room.  She  put  her  hands  on  the  mantelpiece,  and  dropped  her 
head  upon  them,  and  so  stood  silent  for  long.  There  was  no 
sound  audible  in  the  room,  or  from  the  house  outside.  And  in 
the  silence  a  proud  and  broken  heart  once  more  nerved  itself  to  an 
endurance  that  brought  it  peace  with  neither  man  nor  God. 

"I  shall  go,  for  all  our  sakes,"  thought  IMarcella,  as  she  stood 
late  that  night  brushing  her  hair  before  her  dimly-lighted  and 
rickety  dressing-table.     "We  have,  it  seems,  no  right  to  be  proud." 

A  rush  of  pain  and  bitterness  filled  her  heart — pain,  new-born 


CIIA1-.  VII  MARCELLA  71 

and  insistent,  for  her  mother,  her  father,  and  herself.  Ever  since 
Aldons  Raeburn's  hesitating  revelations,  she  had  been  liable  to  this 
sudden  invasion  of  a  hot  and  shamed  misery.  And  to-night,  after 
her  talk  with  her  mother,  it  could  not  but  overtake  her  afresh. 

But  her  strong  personality,  her  passionate  sense  of  a  moral  inde- 
pendence not  to  be  undone  by  the  acts  of  another,  even  a  father, 
made  her  soon  impatient  of  her  own  distress,  and  she  flung  it  from 
her  with  decision. 

"  No,  we  have  no  right  to  be  proud,"  she  repeated  to  herself.  "  It 
must  all  be  true  what  Mr.  liaeburn  said  —  probably  a  great  deal 
more.  Poor,  poor  mamma!  But,  all  the  same,  there  is  nothing  to 
be  got  out  of  empty  quarrelling  and  standing  alone.  And  it  was 
so  long  ago." 

Her  hand  fell,  and  she  stood  absently  looking  at  her  own  black 
and  white  reflection  in  the  old  flawed  glass. 

She  was  thinking,  of  course,  of  Mr.  Raeburn.  He  liad  been  very 
prompt  in  her  sei'vice.  There  could  be  no  question  but  tliat  he  was 
specially  interested  in  her. 

And  he  was  not  a  man  to  be  lightly  played  upon  —  nay,  rather  a 
singularly  resented  and  scrupulous  person.  So,  at  least,  it  had 
been  always  held  concerning  him.  Marcella  was  triumphantly 
conscious  that  he  had  not  from  the  beginning  given  her  much 
trouble.  But  the  common  report  of  him  made  his  recent  manner 
towards  her,  this  last  action  of  his,  the  more  significant.  Even  the 
Hardens  —  so  Marcella  gathered  from  her  f rietid  and  admirer  Mary 
—  unworldly  dreamy  folk,  wrapt  up  in  good  works,  and  in  the  has- 
tening of  Christ's  kingdom,  were  on  the  alert  and  beginning  to  take 
note. 

It  was  not  as  though  he  were  in  the  dark  as  to  her  antecedents. 
He  knew  all — at  any  rate,  more  than  she  did  —  and  yet  it  might 
end  in  his  asking  l;er  to  marry  him.     What  then? 

Scarcely  a  quiver  in  the  young  form  before  the  glass !  Love,  at 
such  a  thought,  must  have  sunk  upon  its  knees  and  hid  its  face  for 
tender  humbleness  and  requital.  Marcella  only  looked  quietly  at 
the  beauty  which  might  easily  prove  to  be  so  important  an  arrow 
in  her  quiver. 

What  was  stirring  in  her  was  really  a  passionate  ambition  —  am- 
bition to  be  the  queen  and  ai'bitress  of  human  lives  —  to  be  believed 
in  by  her  friends,  to  make  a  mark  for  herself  among  women,  and 
to  make  it  in  the  most  romantic  and  yet  natural  way,  without  what 
had  always  seemed  to  her  the  sordid  and  unpleasant  drudgeries  of 
the  platform,  of  a  tiresome  co-operation  with,  or  subordination  to 
others  who  coidd  not  understand  your  ideas. 

Of  course,  if  it  happened,  people  would  say  that  she  had  tried  to 
capture  Aldous  Raeburn  for  his  money  and  position's  sake.     Let 


72  MAECELLA  book  i 

them  say  it.  People  with  base  minds  must  think  basely;  there 
was  no  help  for  it.  Those  whom  she  would  make  her  friends 
would  know  very  well  for  what  purpose  she  wanted  money,  power, 
and  the  support  of  such  a  man,  and  such  a  marriage.  Her  modern 
realism  played  with  the  thought  quite  freely ;  her  maidenliness, 
proud  and  pure  as  it  was,  being  nowise  ashamed.  Oh !  for  some- 
thing to  carry  her  deej)  into  life ;  into  the  heart  of  its  widest  and 
most  splendid  opportunities ! 

She  thi'ew  up  her  hands,  clasping  them  above  her  head  amid 
her  clouds  of  curly  hair  —  a  girlish  excited  gesture. 

"I  could  revive  the  straw-plaiting;  give  them  better  teaching 
and  better  models.  The  cottages  should  be  rebuilt.  Papa  would 
willingly  hand  the  village  over  to  me  if  I  found  the  money  !  We 
would  have  a  parish  committee  to  deal  with  the  charities  —  oh! 
the  Hardens  would  come  in.  The  old  people  should  have  their 
pensions  as  of  right.  Ko  hopeless  old  age,  no  cringing  dependence  ! 
We  would  try  co-operation  on  the  land,  and  pull  it  through.  And 
not  in  Mellor  only.  One  might  be  the  ruler,  the  regenerator  of 
half  a  county  ! " 

Memory  brought  to  mind  in  \dvid  sequence  the  figures  and  inci- 
dents of  the  afternoon,  of  her  village  round  with  Mary  Harden. 

'■'■As  the  eyes  of  servants  toivards  the  hand  of  their  mistress"  —  the 
old  words  occurred  to  her  as  she  thought  of  herself  stejDping  in 
and  out  of  the  cottages.  Then  she  was  ashamed  of  herself  and 
rejected  the  image  with  vehemence.  Dependence  was  the  curse  of 
the  poor.  Her  whole  aim,  of  course,  should  be  to  teach  them  to 
stand  on  their  own  feet,  to  know  themselves  as  men.  But  natu- 
rally they  would  be  grateful,  they  would  let  themselves  be  led. 
Intelligence  and  enthusiasm  give  power,  and  ought  to  give  it  — 
power  for  good.  No  doubt,  imder  Socialism,  there  will  be  less 
scope  for  either,  because  there  will  be  less  need.  But  Socialism, 
as  a  system,  will  not  come  in  our  generation.  What  we  have  to 
think  for  is  the  transition  period.  The  Cravens  had  never  seen 
that,  but  Marcella  saw  it.  She  began  to  feel  herself  a  person  of 
larger  experience  than  thej'. 

As  she  undressed,  it  seemed  to  her  as  though  she  still  felt  the 
clinging  hands  of  the  Hurd  children  round  her  knees,  and  througli 
them,  symbolised  by  them,  the  supi^liant  touch  of  hundreds  of 
other  helpless  creatures. 

She  was  just  dropping  to  sleep  when  her  own  words  to  Aldous 
Raeburn  flashed  across  her,  — 

"  Everybody  is  so  ready  to  take  charge  of  other  people's  lives, 
and  look  at  the  result ! " 

She  must  needs  laugh  at  herself,  but  it  made  little  matter.  She 
fell  asleej)  cradled  in  dreams.  Aldous  Raeburn's  final  part  in 
them  was  not  great !  " 


CHAP.  VIII  MARCELLA  73 


CHAPTER   VIII 

Mrs.  Boyce  wrote  her  note  to  Miss  Raeburn,  a  note  containing 
cold  though  civil  excuses  as  to  herself,  while  accepting  the  invita- 
tion for  Marcella,  who  should  be  sent  to  the  Court,  either  in  the 
carriage  or  under  the  escort  of  a  maid  who  could  bring  her  back. 
Marcella  found  her  mother  inclined  to  insist  punctiliously  on  con- 
ventions of  this  kind.  It  amused  her,  in  submitting  to  them,  to 
remember  the  free  and  easy  ways  of  her  London  life.  But  she 
submitted  —  and  not  unwillingly. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  day  which  intervened  between  the  Max- 
wells' call  and  her  introduction  to  the  Court,  Marcella  walked  as 
usual  down  to  the  village.  She  was  teeming  with  plans  for  her  new 
kingdom,  and  could  not  keep  herself  out  of  it.  And  an  entry  in 
one  of  the  local  papers  had  suggested  to  her  that  Hurd  might  pos- 
sibly find  work  in  a  parish  some  miles  from  Mellor.  She  must  go 
and  send  him  off  there. 

When  Mrs.  Hurd  opened  the  door  to  her,  Marcella  was  aston- 
ished to  perceive  behind  her  the  forms  of  several  other  persons 
filling  up  the  narrow  space  of  the  usually  solitary  cottage  —  in 
fact,  a  tea-party. 

"Oh,  come  in,  miss,"  said  Mrs.  Hurd,  with  some  embarrassment, 
as  though  it  occurred  to  her  that  her  visitor  might  legitimately 
wonder  to  find  a  person  of  her  penury  entertaining  company. 
Then,  lowering  her  voice,  she  hurriedly  explained  :  "  There's  Mrs. 
Brunt  come  in  this  afternoon  to  help  me  wi'  the  washin'  while  I 
finished  my  score  of  plait  for  the  woman  who  takes  'em  into  town 
to-morrow.  And  there's  old  Patton  an'  his  wife — you  know  'em, 
miss? — them  as  lives  in  the  parish  houses  top  o'  the  common. 
He's  walked  out  a  few  steps  to-day.  It's  not  often  he's  able,  and 
when  I  see  him  through  the  door  I  said  to  'em,  '  if  you'll  come  in 
an'  take  a  cheer,  I  dessay  them  tea-leaves  'nil  stan'  another  wettin'. 
I  haven't  got  nothink  else.'  And  there's  JNIrs.  Jellison,  she  came  in 
along  o'  the  Pattons.  You  can't  say  her  no,  she's  a  queer  one.  Do 
you  know  her,  miss?" 

"  Oh,  bless  yer,  yes,  yes.  She  knows  me  !  "  said  a  high,  jocular 
voice,  making  Mrs.  Hurd  start;  "she  couldn't  be  long  hereabouts 
without  makkin'  eeaste  to  know  me.  You  coom  in,  miss.  We're 
not  afraid  o'  you  —  Lor'  bless  you !  " 

Mrs.  Hurd  stood  aside  for  her  visitor  to  pass  in,  looking  round 
her  the  while,  in  some  perplexity,  to  see  whether  there  was  a  spare 
chair  and  room  to  place  it.  She  was  a  delicate,. willowy  woman, 
still  young  in  figure,  with  a  fresh  colour,  belied  by  the  grey  circles 
under  the  eyes  and  the  pinched  sharpness  of  the  features.     The 


74  MAECELLA  book  i 

upper  lip,  which  was  pretty  and  childisli,  was  raised  a  little  over 
the  teeth ;  the  whole  expression  of  the  slightly  open  mouth  was 
unusually  soft  and  sensitive.  On  the  whole,  Minta  Hurd  was  liked 
in  the  village,  though  she  was  thought  a  trifle  "  fine."  'J'he  wdiole 
family,  indeed,  "kept  theirsels  to  theirsels,"  and  to  find  ]\Irs.  Hurd 
with  company  was  unusual.  Her  name,  of  course,  was  short  for 
Araminta. 

Marcella  laughed  as  she  caught  Mrs.  Jellison's  remarks,  and 
made  her  way  in,  delighted.  For  the  present,  these  village  people 
affected  her  like  figures  in  poetry  or  drama.  She  saw  them  with 
the  eye  of  the  imagination  through  a  medium  provided  by  Social- 
ist discussion,  or  by  certain  phases  of  modern  art;  and  the  little 
scene  of  Mi-s.  Hurd's  tea-party  took  for  her  in  an  instant  the 
dramatic  zest  and  glamour. 

"Look  here,  Mrs.  Jellison,"  she  said,  going  up  to  her;  "I  was 
just  going  to  leave  these  apples  for  your  grandson.  Perhaps 
you'll  take  them,  now  you're  here.  They're  quite  sweet,  thougli 
they  look  green.     They're  the  best  we've  got,  the  gardener  says."  • 

"Oh,  they  are,  are  they?"  said  Mrs.  Jellison,  composedly,  look- 
ing up  at  her,  "  AVell,  put  'em  down,  miss.  I  dare  say  he'll  eat 
em.  He  eats  most  things,  and  don't  want  no  doctor's  stutt'  nay- 
thei',  though  his  mother  do  keep  on  at  me  for  spoilin'  his  stum- 
muck." 

"  You  are  just  fond  of  that  boy,  aren't  you,  Mrs.  Jellison  ?  "  said 
Marcella,  taking  a  wooden  stool,  the  only  piece  of  furniture  left  in 
the  tiny  cottage  on  which  it  w^as  possible  to  sit,  and  squeezing  her- 
self into  a  corner  by  the  fire,  whence  she  commanded  the  whole 
group.  "No!  don't  you  turn  Mr.  Patton  out  of  that  chair,  JNIrs. 
Hurd,  or  I  shall  have  to  go  away." 

For  j\Irs.  Hurd,  in  her  anxiety,  was  whispering  in  old  Patton's 
ear  that  it  might  be  well  for  him  to  give  \ip  her  one  wooden  arm- 
chair, in  wdiich  he  was  established,  to  Miss  Boyce.  But  he,  being 
old,  deaf,  and  rheumatic,  was  slow  to  move,  and  Marcella's  peremp- 
tory gestui'e  bade  her  leave  him  in  peace 

"Well,  it's  you  that's  the  young  'un,  ain't  it,  miss?"  said  Mrs. 
Jellison,  cheerfully.  "  Poor  old  Patton,  he  do  get  slow  on  his  legs, 
don't  you,  Patton  ?  But  there,  there's  no  helping  it  when  you're 
turned  of  eighty." 

And  she  turned  upon  him  a  bright,  philosophic  eye,  being  her- 
self a  young  thing  not  much  over  seventy,  and  energetic  accord- 
ingly. Mrs.  Jellison  passed  for  the  village  wit,  and  was  at  least 
talkative  and  excitable  beyond  her  fellows. 

"  Well,  you  don't  seem  to  mind  getting  old,  INIrs.  Jellison,"  said 
Marcella,  smiling  at  her. 

The  eyes  of  all  the  old  people  }'ound  their  tea-table  were  by  now 


CHAP.  VIII  MARCELLA  75 

drawn  irresistibly  to  Miss  Boyce  in  the  chimney  corner,  to  her 
slim  grace,  and  the  siilendour  of  her  large  black  hat  and  feathers. 
The  new  squire's  (hiughter  had  so  far  taken  them  by  surprise. 
Some  of  them,  howevei',  were  by  now  in  the  second  stage  of  critical 
observation  —  none  the  less  critical  because  furtive  and  inarticu- 
late. 

"Ah?"  said  Mrs.  Jellison,  interrogatively,  with  a  high,  long- 
drawn  note  peculiar  to  her.  "  Well,  I've  never  found  you  get  for- 
rarder  wi'  snarlin'  over  what  you  can't  help.  And  there's  mercies. 
When  you've  had  a  husband  in  his  bed  for  fower  j'ear,  miss,  and 
he's  took  at  last,  you'll  Inoic.'' 

She  nodded  emphatically.     ^Marcella  lauglied. 

"  I  know  you  were  very  fond  of  him,  Mrs.  Jellison,  and  looked 
after  him  very  well,  too." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  say  nothin'  about  that,"  said  Mrs.  Jellison,  hastily. 
"  But  all  the  same  you  kin  reckon  it  up,  and  see  for  yoursen. 
Fower  year —  an'  lire  upstairs,  an'  fire  downstairs,  an'  fii"e  all  night, 
an'  soomthin'  alius  wanted.  An'  he  such  an  objeck  afore  he  died ! 
It  do  seem  like  a  holidaj'  now  to  sit  a  bit." 

And  she  crossed  her  hands  on  her  lap  with  a  long  breath  of  con- 
tent. A  lock  of  grey  hair  had  escaped  from  her  bonnet,  across  her 
wrinkled  forehead,  and  gave  lier  a  half-careless  rakish  air.  Her 
youth  of  long  ago — a  youth  of  mad  spirits,  and  of  an  extraordi- 
nary capacity  for  physical  enjoyment,  seemed  at  times  to  pierce 
to  the  surface  again,  even  tln-ough  her  load  of  years.  Biit  in  gen- 
eral she  had  a  dreamy,  suiiny  look,  as  of  one  fed  with  humorous 
fancies,  but  disinclined  often  to  the  trouble  of  Gonmiunicating 
them. 

"  Well,  T  missed  my  daughter,  I  kin  tell  you,"  said  Mrs.  Brunt, 
witli  a  sigh,  "though  she  took  a  deal  more  lookiu'  after  nor  your 
good  man,  Mrs.  Jellison." 

Mrs.  Brunt  was  a  gentle,  pretty  old  woman,  who  lived  in  another 
of  the  village  almshouses,  next  door  to  the  Pattons,  and  was  always 
ready  to  help  her  neighbours  in  their  domestic  toils.  Her  last 
remaining  daughter,  the  victim  of  a  horrible  spinal  disease,  had 
died  some  nine  or  ten  months  before  the  Boyces  arrived  at  Mellor. 
Marcella  had  already  heard  the  story  several  times,  but  it  was  part 
of  her  social  gift  that  slie  Avas  a  good  listener  to  such  things  even 
at  the  twentieth  hearing. 

"You  wouldn't  have  her  back  though,"  she  said  gently,  turning 
towards  the  speaker. 

"  No,  I  wouldn't  have  her  back,  miss,"  said  Mrs.  Brunt,  raising 
her  hand  to  brush  away  a  tear,  partly  the  result  of  feeling,  partly 
of  a  long-established  habit.  "  But  I  do  miss  her  nights  terrible! 
'  Mother,  ain't  it  ten  ti'clock  ?  —  mother,  look  at  the  clock,   do, 


76  MARCELLA  book  i 

mother —  ain't  it  time  for  my  stuff,  mother  —  oh,  I  do  liope  it  is.' 
That  was  her  stuff,  miss,  to  make  her  sleep.  And  when  she'd  got 
it,  she'd  groan  —  you'd  think  she  couldn't  be  asleep,  and  yet  she 
was,  dead-like  —  for. two  hours.  I  didn't  get  no  rest  with  her,  and 
now  I  don't  seem  to  get  no  rest  without  her." 

And  again  Mrs.  Brunt  put  her  hand  up  to  her  eyes. 

"  Ah,  you  were  alius  one  for  toilin'  an'  frettin',"  said  IMi's.  Jelli- 
sou,  calmly.  "  A  body  must  get  through  wi'  it  when  it's  there,  but 
I  don't  hold  wi'  thinkin'  about  it  when  it's  done." 

"I  know  one,"  said  old  Patton,  slilj^,  '-that  fretted  about  her 
darter  when  it  didn't  do  her  no  good." 

He  had  not  spoken  so  far,  but  had  sat  with  his  hands  on  his 
stick,  a  spectator  of  the  women's  humours.  He  was  a  little  hunched 
man,  twisted  and  bent  double  with  rheumatic  gout,  the  fruit  of 
seventy  years  of  field  work.  His  small  face  was  almost  lost,  dog- 
like, under  shaggy  hair  and  overgrown  eyebrows,  both  snow-white. 
He  had  a  look  of  irritable  eagerness,  seldom,  however,  expressed 
in  words.  A  sudden  passion  in  the  faded  blue  eyes ;  a  quick  spot 
of  red  in  his  old  cheeks;  these  Marcella  had  often  noticed  in  him, 
as  though  the  flame  of  some  inner  furnace  leapt.  He  had  been  a 
Radical  and  a  rebel  once  in  old  rick-burning  days,  long  before  he 
lost  the  power  in  his  limbs  and  came  down  to  be  thanlcful  for  one 
of  the  parish  almshouses.  To  his  social  betters  he  was  now  a  quiet 
and  peaceable  old  man,  well  aware  of  the  cakes  and  ale  to  be  got 
by  good  manners;  but  in  the  depths  of  him  there  were  reminis- 
cences and  the  gliosts  of  passions,  which  were  still  stirred  some- 
times by  causes  not  always  intelligible  to  the  bystander. 

He  had  rarely,  however,  physical  energy  enough  to  bring  any 
emotion  —  even  of  mere  worry  at  his  physical  ills  —  to  the  birth. 
The  pathetic  silence  of  age  enwrapped  him  more  and  more.  Still 
he  could  gibe  the  women  sometimes,  especially  Mrs.  Jellison,  who 
was  in  general  too  clever  for  her  company. 

"Oh,  you  may  talk,  Patton!"  said  Mrs.  Jellison,  w'ith  a  little 
flash  of  excitement.  "You  do  like  to  have  your  talk,  don't  you! 
Well,  I  dare  say  I  was  orkard  with  Isabella.  I  won't  go  for  to  say 
I  wasn't  orkard,  for  I  was.  She  should  ha'  used  me  to  't  before,  if 
she  wor  took  that  way.  She  and  1  had  just  settled  down  comfort- 
able after  my  old  man  went,  and  I  didn't  see  no  sense  in  it,  an'  I 
don't  now.  She  might  ha'  let  the  men  alone.  She'd  seen  enough 
o'  the  worrit  ov  'era." 

"Well,  she  did  well  for  hersen,"  said  ]\[rs.  Brunt,  with  the  same 
gentle  melancholy.  "  She  married  a  stiddy  man  as  'ull  keep  her 
w^ell  all  her  time,  and  never  let  her  want  for  nothink." 

"A  sour,  wooden-faced  chap  as  iver  I  knew,"  said  JNIrs.  Jellison, 
grudgingly.     "  1  don't  have  nothink  to  say  to  him,  nor  he  to  me. 


CHAP.  VIII  MARCELLA  77 

He  thinks  hissen  the  Grand  Turk,  he  do,  since  they  gi'en  him  his 
uniform,  and  made  him  full  keeper.  A  nassty,  domineerin'  sort,  I 
calls  him.  He's  alius  makin'  bad  blood  \vi'  the  yoong  fellers  when 
he  don't  need.  It's  tlie  way  he's  got  wi'  'im.  But  1  don't  make 
no  account  of  'im,  an'  I  let  'im  see  't." 

All  the  tea-party  grinned  except  Mrs.  Hurd.  The  village  was 
well  acquainted  with  the  feud  between  Mrs.  Jellison  and  her  son- 
in-law,  George  Westall,  who  had  persuaded  Isabella  Jellison  at 
the  mature  age  of  thirty-five  to  leave  her  mother  and  marry  him, 
and  was  now  one  of  Lord  Maxwell's  keepers,  with  good  pay,  and 
an  excellent  cottage  some  little  way  out  of  the  village.  Mrs.  Jelli- 
son had  never  forgiven  her  daughter  for  deserting  her,  and  was  on 
lively  terms  of  hostility  with  her  son-in-law;  but  their  only  child, 
little  Johnnie,  had  foimd  the  soft  spot  in  his  grandmother,  and 
her  favourite  excitement  in  life,  now  that  he  was  four  years  old, 
was  to  steal  him  from  his  parents  and  feed  him  on  the  things  of 
which  Isabella  most  vigorously  disapproved. 

Mrs.  Hurd,  as  has  been  said,  did  not  smile.  At  the  mention  of 
Westall,  she  got  up  hastily,  and  began  to  put  away  the  tea  things. 

Marcella  meanwhile  had  been  sitting  thoughtful. 

"You  say  Westall  makes  bad  blood  with  the  young  men,  ]\Irs. 
Jellison  ?  "  she  said,  looking  up.  "  Is  there  much  poaching  in  this 
village  now,  do  you  think  ?  " 

There  was  a  dead  silence.  Mrs.  Hurd  was  at  the  other  end  of 
the  cottage  with  her  back  to  Marcella ;  at  the  question,  her  hands 
paused  an  instant  in  their  work.  The  eyes  of  all  the  old  people  — 
of  Patton  and  his  wife,  of  Mrs.  Jellison,  and  pretty  Mrs.  Brunt — 
were  fixed  on  the  speaker,  but  nobody  said  a  word,  not  even  Mrs. 
Jellison.     Marcella  coloured. 

"Oh,  you  needn't  suppose  —  "  she  said,  throwing  her  beautiful 
head  back,  "you  needn't  supjiose  that  I  care  about  the  game,  or 
that  I  would  ever  be  mean  enough  to  tell  anything  that  was  told 
me.  I  know  it  does  cause  a  great  deal  of  quarrelling  and  bad 
blood.  I  believe  it  does  here — and  I  should  like  to  know  more 
aljout  it.  I  want  to  make  up  my  mind  what  to  think.  Of  course, 
my  father  has  got  his  land  and  his  ow'u  opinions.  And  Lord  Max- 
well has  too.  But  I  am  not  bound  to  think  like  either  of  them  —  I 
should  like  you  to  understand  that.  It  seems  to  me  right  about 
all  such  things  that  people  should  enquire  and  find  out  for 
themselves." 

Still  silence.  Mrs.  Jellison's  mouth  twitched,  and  she  threw  a 
sly  provocative  glance  at  old  Patton,  as  though  she  would  have 
liked  to  poke  him  in  the  ribs.  But  she  was  not  going  to  help 
him  out;  and  at  last  the  one  male  in  the  company  found  himself 
obliged  to  clear  his  throat  for  reply. 


78  MARCELLA  book  i 

"  We're  old  folks,  most  on  us,  miss,  'cept  Mrs.  Hard.  We  don't 
hear  talk  o'  things  now  like  as  we  did  when  we  were  younger.  If 
you  ast  Mr.  Harden  he'll  tell  you,  1  dessay." 

Patton  allowed  himself  an  inward  chuckle.  Even  Mrs.  Jellison, 
he  thought,  must  admit  that  he  knew  a  thing  or  two  as  to  the  best 
way  of  dealing  with  the  gentry. 

But  INIarcella  fixed  him  with  her  bright  frank  eyes. 

"  I  had  rather  ask  in  the  village,"  she  said.  "If  you  don't  know 
how  it  is  now,  Mr.  Patton,  tell  me  how  it  used  to  be  when  you 
were  young.  Was  the  preserving  very  strict  about  here?  Were 
there  often  fights  with  the  keepers  —  long  ago?  —  in  my  grand- 
father's days?  —  and  do  you  think  men  poached  because  they  were 
hungry,  or  because  they  wanted  sport  ?  " 

Patton  looked  at  her  fixedly  a  moment  undecided,  then  her 
strong  nervous  youth  seemed  to  exercise  a  kind  of  compulsion  on 
him ;  perhaps,  too,  the  pretty  courtesy  of  her  manner.  He  cleared 
his  throat  again,  and  tried  to  forget  Mrs.  Jellison,  who  would  be 
sure  to  let  him  hear  of  it  again,  whatever  he  said. 

"  Well,  I  can't  answer  for  'em,  miss,  I'm  sure,  but  if  you  ast  me, 
I  b'lieve  ther's  a  bit  o'  boath  in  it.  Yer  see  it's  not  in  human 
natur,  when  a  man's  young  and  's  got  his  blood  up,  as  he  shouldn't 
want  ter  have  'is  sport  with  the  wild  creeturs.  Perhaps  he  see  'em 
whenee's  going  to  the  wood  with  a  wood  cart — -or  he  cooms  across 
'em  in  the  turnips  —  wounded  birds,  you  understan',  miss,  perhaps 
the  day  after  the  gentry  'as  been  bangin'  at  'em  all  day.  An'  ee 
don't  see,  not  for  the  life  of  'im,  why  ee  shouldn't  have  'em.  Ther's 
bin  lots  an'  lots  for  the  rich  folks,  an'  he  don't  see  why  ee  shouldn't 
have  a  few  arter  they've  enjoyed  theirselves.  And  mebbe  he's 
eleven  shillin'  a  week  —  an'  two-threy  little  chillen  — you  under- 
stan', miss?' 

"  Of  course  I  understand !  "  said  Marcella,  eagerly,  her  dark 
cheek  flushing.  "Of  course  I  do!  But  there's  a  good  deal  of 
game  given  away  in  these  parts,  isn't  there  ?  I  know  Lord  Max- 
well does,  and  they  say  Lord  Winterbourne  gives  all  his  labom'ers 
rabbits,  almost  as  many  as  they  want." 

Her  questions  wound  old  Patton  up  as  though  he  had  been  a 
disused  clock.  He  began  to  feel  a  whirr  among  his  creaking 
wheels,  a  shaking  of  all  his  rustj'-  mind. 

"  Perhaps  they  do,  miss,"  he  said,  and  his  wife  saw  that  he  was 
beginning  to  tremble.  "I  dessay  they  do — -I  don't  say  nothink 
agen  it  —  though  theer's  none  of  it  cooms  my  way.  But  that  isn't 
all  the  rights  on  it  nay ther  —  no,  that  it  ain't.  The  labourin'  man 
ee's  glad  enough  to  get  a  hare  or  a  rabbit  for  'is  eatin'  —  but 
there's  more  in  it  nor  that,  miss.  Ee's  alius  in  the  fields,  that's 
where  it  is  —  ee  can't  help  seein'  the  hares  and  the  rabbits  a-comin' 


CHAP.  VIII  MARCELLA  79 

in  and  out  o'  the  woods,  if  it  were  iver  so.  Ee  knows  ivery  I'un  ov 
ivery  one  on  'em  ;  if  a  liare's  started  furthest  corner  o'  t'  field,  he 
can  tell  yer  whar  she'll  git  in  by,  because  he's  alius  there,  you  see, 
miss,  an'  it's  the  only  thing  he's  got  to  take  his  mind  off  like. 
And  then  he  sets  a  snare  or  two  —  an'  ee  gits  very  sharp  at  settin' 
on  'em  —  an'  ee'll  go  out  nights  for  the  sport  of  it.  Ther  isn't 
many  things  ee's  got  to  liven  him  up ;  an'  ee  takes  'is  chances  o' 
goin'  to  jail  —  it's  wuth  it,  ee  thinks." 

The  old  man's  hands  on  his  stick  shook  more  and  more  visibly. 
Bygones  of  his  youth  had  come  back  to  him. 

"  Oh,  I  know  !  I  know  !  "  cried  Marcella,  with  an  accent  half  of 
indignation,  half  of  despair.  "  It's  the  whole  wretclied  system.  It 
spoils  those  who've  got,  and  those  who  haven't  got.  And  there'll 
be  no  mending  it  till  the  people  get  the  laud  back  again,  and  till 
the  rights  on  it  are  conunon  to  all." 

"  My !  she  do  speak  up,  don't  she  ?  "  said  Mrs.  flellison,  grinning 
again  at  her  companions.  Then,  stooping  forward  with  one  of 
her  wild  movements,  she  caught  Marcella's  arm  —  "I'd  like  to 
hear  yer  tell  that  to  Lord  INIaxwell,  miss.  I  likes  a  roompus,  I 
do." 

Marcella  flushed  and  laughed. 

"  I  wouldn't  mind  saying  that  or  anything  else  to  Lord  Max- 
well," she  said  proudly.     "  I'm  not  ashamed  of  anything  I  think." 

"  No,  I'll  bet  you  ain't,''  said  J\Irs.  Jellison,  withdrawing  her 
hand.  "Now  then,  Patton,  you  say  what  you  thinks.  You  ain't 
got  no  vote  now  you're  in  the  parish  houses  —  I  minds  that.  The 
quality  don't  trouble  you  at  'lection  times.  This  yoong  man, 
Muster  Wharton,  as  is  goin  round  so  free,  promisin'  yer  the  sun 
out  o'  the  sky,  iv  yer'll  only  vote  for  'im,  so  th'  men  say  —  ee  don't 
coom  an'  set  down  along  o'  you  an*  me,  an'  cocker  of  us  up  as  ee 
do  Joe  Simmons  or  Jim  Ilurd  here.  But  that  don't  matter.  Yur 
thinkin's  yur  own,  anyway." 

But  she  nudged  him  in  vain  Patton  had  suddenly  run  dovvn, 
and  there  was  no  more  to  be  got  out  of  him. 

Not  only  had  nerves  and  speech  failed  him  as  they  were  wont, 
but  in  his  cloudy  soul  there  had  risen,  even  while  Marcella  was 
speaking,  the  inevitable  suspicion  which  dogs  the  relations  of  the 
poor  towards  the  richer  class.  This  young  lady,  with  her  strange 
talk,  was  the  new  squire's  daughter.  And  the  village  had  already 
made  up  its  mind  that  Richard  Boyce  was  "  a  poor  sort,"  and  "  a 
hard  sort  •  too,  in  his  landlord  capacity.  He  wasn't  going  to  be 
any  improvement  on  his  brother  —  not  a  haporth  !  What  was 
the  good  of  this  young  woman  talking,  as  she  did,  when  there  were 
tln-ee  summonses  as  he,  Patton,  heard  tell,  just  taken  out  by  the 
sanitary  inspector  again.st  Mr.  Boyce  for  bad  cottages?     And  not 


80  MARCELLA  book  i 

a  farthing  given  away  in  the  village  neither,  except  perhaps  the 
bits  of  food  that  the  young  lady  herself  brought  down  to  the  vil- 
lage now  and  then,  for  which  no  one,  in  truth,  felt  any  cause  to 
be  particularly  grateful.  Besides,  what  did  she  mean  by  asking 
questions  about  the  poaching?  Old  Patton  knew  as  well  as  any- 
body else  in  the  village,  that  during  Robert  Boyce's  last  days,  and 
after  the  death  of  his  sportsman  son,  the  Mellor  estate  had  become 
the  haunt  of  poachers  from  far  and  near,  and  that  the  trouble  had 
long  since  spread  into  the  neighbouring  properties,  so  that  the 
Winterbourne  and  ]\Iaxwell  keepers  regarded  it  their  most  arduous 
business  to  keep  watch  on  the  men  of  Mellor.  Of  course  the  young 
woman  knew  it  all,  and  she  and  her  father  wanted  to  know  more. 
That  was  why  she  talked.  Patton  hardened  himself  against  the 
creeping  ways  of  the  quality. 

"  I  don't  think  nought,"  he  said  roughly  in  answer  to  Mrs.  Jelli- 
son.  "  Thinkin'  won't  come  atwixt  me  and  the  parish  coffin  when 
I'm  took.     I've  no  call  to  think,  I  tell  yer." 

Marcella's  chest  heaved  with  indignant  feeling. 

"  Oh,  but,  Mr.  Patton ! "  she  cried,  leaning  forward  to  him, 
"won't  it  comfort  you  a  bit,  even  if  you  can't  live  to  see  it,  to 
think  there's  a  better  time  coming  ?  There  must  be.  People  can't 
go  on  like  this  always  —  hating  each  other  and  trampling  on  each 
other.  They're  beginning  to  see  it  now,  they  are !  When  I  was 
living  in  London,  the  persons  I  was  with  talked  and  thought  of  it 
all  day.  Some  day,  whenever  the  people  choose  —  for  they've  got 
the  power  now  they've  got  the  vote  —  there'll  be  laud  for  every- 
body, and  in  every  village  there'll  be  a  council  to  manage  things, 
and  the  labourer  will  count  for  just  as  much  as  the  squire  and  the 
parson,  and  he'll  be  better  educated  and  better  fed,  and  care  for 
many  things  he  doesn't  care  for  now.  But  all  the  same,  if  he 
wants  sport  and  shooting,  it  will  be  there  for  him  to  get.  For 
everybody  will  have  a  chance  and  a  turn,  and  there'll  be  no  bitter- 
ness between  classes,  and  no  hopeless  pining  and  misery  as  there 
is  now ! " 

The  giii  broke  off,  catching  her  breath.  It  excited  her  to  say 
these  things  to  these  people,  to  these  poor  tottering  old  things  who 
had  lived  out  their  lives  to  the  end  under  the  pressure  of  an  iron 
system,  and  had  no  lien  on  the  future,  whatever  Paradise  it  might 
bring.  Again  the  situation  had  something  foreseen  and  dramatic 
in  it.  She  saw  herself,  as  the  preacher,  sitting  on  her  stool  beside 
the  poor  grate  —  she  realised  as  a  spectator  the  figures  of  the 
women  and  the  old  man  played  on  by  the  firelight  —  the  white, 
bare,  dam]^>stained  walls  of  the  cottage,  and  in  the  background  the 
fragile  though  still  comely  form  of  Minta  Hurd,  who  was  standing 
with  her  back  to  the  dresser,  and  her  head  bent  forward,  listening 


CHAP.  VIII  MAllCELLA  81 

to  the  talk  while  her  fingers  twisted  the  straw  she  plaited  eter- 
nally from  morning  till  night,  for  a  wage  of  abont  l.s".  '-id.  a  week. 

Her  mind  was  all  aflame  with  excitement  and  defiance  —  defi- 
ance of  her  father,  Lord  Maxwell,  Aldous  llaeburn.  Let  him 
come,  her  friend,  and  see  for  himself  what  she  thought  it  right  to 
do  and  say  in  this  miserable  village.  Her  soul  challenged  him, 
longed  to  provoke  him !  Well,  she  was  soon  to  meet  him,  and  in 
a  new  and  more  significant  relation  and  environment.  The  fact 
made  her  perception  of  the  whole  situation  the  more  rich  and 
vibrant. 

Patton,  while  these  broken  thoughts  and  sensations  were  cours- 
ing through  Marcella's  head,  was  slowly  revolving  what  she  had 
been  saying,  and  the  others  were  waiting  for  him. 

At  last  he  rolled  his  tongue  round  his  dry  lips  and  delivered 
himself  by  a  final  effort. 

"  Them  as  likes,  miss,  may  believe  as  how  things  are  going  to 
happen  that  way,  but  yer  won't  ketch  me  !  Them  as  have  got  'uU 
keep  "  —  he  let  his  stick  sharply  down  on  the  floor —  "  an'  them  as 
'aven't  got  'uU  'ave  to  go  without  and  Umip  it  —  as  long  as  you're 
ali\'e,  miss,  you  mark  my  words  !  " 

"  Oh,  Lor',  you  wor  alius  one  for  makin'  a  poor  mouth,  Patton  !  " 
said  Mrs.  Jellison.  She  had  been  sitting  with  her  arms  folded 
across  her  chest,  part  absent,  part  amused,  part  malicious.  "  The 
young  lady  speaks  beautiful,  just  like  a  book  she  do.  An'  she's 
likely  to  know  a  deal  better  nor  poor  persons  like  you  and  me.  All 
/  kin  say  is,  —  if  there's  goin'  to  be  dividin'  up  of  other  folks'  prop- 
erty, when  I'm  gone,  I  hope  George  Westall  won't  get  nothiiik  ov 
it !  He's  bad  enough  as  'tis.  Isabella  'ud  have  a  fine  time  if  ee 
took  to  drivin'  ov  his  carriage." 

The  others  laughed  out,  Marcella  at  their  head,  and  Mrs.  Jellison 
subsided,  the  corners  of  her  mouth  still  twitching,  and  her  eyes 
shining  as  though  a  host  of  entertaining  notions  were  trooping 
through  her — -which,  however,  she  preferred  to  amuse  herself  with 
rather  than  the  public.     Marcella  looked  at  Patton  thoughtfully. 

"You've  been  all  your  life  in  this  village,  haven't  you,  Mr. 
Patton  ?  "  she  asked  him. 

"  Born  top  o'  Witchett's  Hill,  miss.  An'  my  wife  here,  she  wor 
born  just  a  house  or  two  further  along,  an'  we  two  bin  married 
sixty-one  year  come  next  ]\Iarch." 

He  had  resumed  his  iisual  almshouse  tone,  civil  and  a  little 
plaintive.  His  wife  behind  him  smiled  gently  at  being  spoken  of. 
She  had  a  long  fair  face,  and  white  hair  surmounted  by  a  bat- 
tered black  bonnet,  a  mouth  set  rather  on  one  side,  and  a  more  ob- 
servant and  refined  air  than  most  of  her  neighbours.  She  sighed 
while  she  talked,  and  spoke  in  a  delicate  quaver. 


82  MAKCELLA  book  i 

"D'ye  know,  miss,"  said  Mrs.  Jellison,  pointing  to  ISlrs.  Patton, 
"  as  she  kep'  school  when  she  was  young  ?  " 

"Did  yon,  Mrs.  Patton?"  asked  Mai-cella  in  her  tone  of  sympa- 
thetic interest.     "The  scliool  wasn't  very  big  then,  I  suppose?" 

"  About  forty,  miss,"  said  INIrs.  Patton,  with  a  sigh.  "  There 
was  eighteen  the  Hector  paid  for,  and  eighteen  Mr.  Boyce  paid 
for,  and  the  rest  paid  for  themselves." 

Her  voice  dropped  gently,  and  she  sighed  again  like  one  weighted 
with  an  eternal  fatigue. 

"And  what  did  you  teach  them?" 

"  AVell,  I  taught  them  the  plaitin',  miss,  and  as  much  readin'  and 
writin'  as  I  knew  myself.  It  wasn't  as  high  as  it  is  now,  you  see, 
miss,"  and  a  delicate  flush  dawned  on  the  old  cheek  as  JSIrs.  Patton 
threw  a  glance  round  her  companions  as  though  appealing  to  theui 
not  to  tell  stories  of  her. 

But  Mrs.  Jellison  was  implacable.  "  It  wor  she  taught  me,"  she 
said,  nodding  at  Marcella  and  pointing  sidewaj^s  to  JVIrs.  Patton. 
"  She  had  a  queer  way  wi'  the  hard  words,  I  can  tell  yer,  miss. 
When  she  couldn't  tell  'em  herself  she'd  never  own  up  to  it.  '  Say 
Jerusalem,  my  dear,  and  i3ass  on.'  That's  what  she'd  say,  she 
would,  sure's  as  you're  alive !  I've  heard  her  do  it  times.  An' 
when  Isabella  an'  me  used  to  read  the  Bible,  nights,  I'd  alius 
rayther  do  't  than  be  beholden  to  me  own  darter.  It  gets  yer 
through,  anyway." 

"  Well,  it  wor  a  good  word,"  said  Mrs.  Patton,  blushing  and 
mildly  defending  herself.     "It  didn't  do  none  of  yer  any  harm." 

"  Oh,  an'  before  her,  miss,  I  went  to  a  school  to  another  woman, 
as  lived  up  Sheplierd's  Row.     You  remember  her,  Betsy  Brunt?" 

Mrs.  Brunt's  worn  eyes  began  ah'eady  to  gleam  and  sparkle. 

"  Yis,  I  recolleck  very  well,  jNIrs.  Jellison.  She  wor  ]NIercy  Moss, 
an'  a  goodish  deal  of  trouble  you'd  use  to  get  me  into  wi'  Mercy 
Moss,  all  along  o'  your  tricks." 

Mrs.  Jellison,  still  with  folded  arms,  began  to  rock  herself  gently 
up  and  down  as  though  to  stimulate  memory. 

"My  word,  but  Muster  Maurice  —  he  wor  the  clergyman  here 
then,  miss  —  wor  set  on  Mercy  Moss.  He  and  his  wife  thej^  flat- 
tered and  cockered  her  up.  Ther  wor  nobody  like  her  for  keepin' 
school,  not  in  their  eyes — -till  one  midsu.mmer  —  she — well  she  — 
I  don't  want  to  say  nothink  onpleasant — but  she  transgressed,"  said 
Mrs.  Jellison,  nodding  mysteriously,  triumphant  however  in  the 
unimpeachable  delicacy  of  her  language,'  and  looking  round  the 
circle  for  approval. 

"  What  did  you  say  ?  "  asked  Marcella,  innocently.  "  What  did 
Mercy  Moss  do  ?  " 

Mrs.  Jellison's  eyes  danced  with  malice"  and  mischief,  but  her 


CUVI-.   vrii  MARCELLA  83 

mouth  shut  like  a  vice.  Pattou  leaned  forward  on  his  stick,  shaken 
with  a  sort  of  imvard  explosion  ;  his  plaintive  wife  laughed  under 
her  breath  till  she  must  needs  sigh  because  laughter  tired  her  old 
bones.  Mrs.  Brunt  gurgled  gently.  And  finally  ISIrs.  Jellisou  was 
carried  away. 

"  Oh,  my  goodness  me,  don't  you  make  me  tell  tales  o'  Mercy 
Moss ! "  she  said  at  last,  dashing  the  water  out  of  her  eyes  with  an 
excited  tremulous  hand.  "  She's  bin  dead  and  gone  these  forty 
year — married  and  buried  mos'  respeckable  —  it  'ud  be  a  bui-ning 
shame  to  bring  up  tales  agen  her  now.  Them  as  tittle-tattles 
about  dead  folks  lieedn't  look  to  lie  quiet  theirselves  in  their 
graves.  I've  said  it  times,  and  I'll  say  it  again.  AVhat  are  you 
lookin'  at  me  for,  Betsy  Brunt?  " 

And  Mrs.  Jellisou  drew  up  suddenly  with  a  fierce  glance  at  ]\Irs. 
Brunt. 

"  Why,  Mrs.  Jellisou,  I  niver  meant  no  offence,"  said  j\Irs. 
Brunt,  hastity. 

"I  won't  stand  no  insinooating,"  said  Mrs.  Jellisou,  with  energy. 
"If  you've  got  soomthink  agen  me,  you  may  out  avI'  't  an'  niver 
mind  the  young  lady." 

But  Mrs.  Brunt,  much  fluri'ied,  retreated  amid  a  shower  of  ex- 
cuses, pursued  by  her  enemy,  who  was  soon  worrying  the  whole 
little  company,  as  a  dog  worries  a  flock  of  sheep,  snapping  here 
and  teasing  there,  chattering  at  the  toj)  of  her  voice  in  broad  dia- 
lect, as  she  got  more  and  more  excited,  and  quite  as  ready  to  break 
her  wit  on  Marcella  as  on  anybody  else.  As  for  the  others,  most 
of  them  had  known  little  else  for  weeks  than  alternations  of  toil 
and  sickness ;  they  were  as  much  amused  and  excited  to-night  by 
Mrs.  Jellison's  audacities  as  a  Londoner  is  by  his  favourite  low  come- 
dian at  his  favourite  music-hall.  They  played  chorus  to  her,  laughed, 
baited  her ;  even  old  Patton  was  drawn  against  his  will  into  a  caus- 
tic sociability. 

Marcella  meanwhile  sat  on  her  stool,  her  chin  upon  her  hand, 
and  her  full  glowing  eyes' turned  upon  the  little  spectacle,  absorb- 
ing it  all  with  a  covetous  curiosity. 

The  light-heartedness,  the  power  of  enjoyment  left  in  these  old 
folk  struck  her  dumb.  Mrs.  Brunt  had  an  income  of  two-and- 
sixpence  a  w^eek,  plus  two  loaves  from  the  parish,  and  one  of  the 
parish  or  "  chaiity  "  houses,  a  hovel,  that  is  to  say,  of  one  room, 
scarcely  fit  for  human  habitation  at  all.  She  had  lost  five  children, 
was  allowed  two  shiljings  a  week  by  two  labourer  sons,  and  earned 
sixi^ence  a  week  —  about  —  by  continuous  work  at "  the  plait."  Her 
husband  had  been  run  over  by  a  farm  cart  and  killed ;  up  to  the 
time  of  his  death  his  earnings  averaged  about  twenty-eight  pounds 
a  year,     ^luch  the  same  with  the  Pattons.     They  had  lost  eight 


84  MARCELLA  book  i 

children  out  of  ten,  and  were  now  mainly  suppoi'ted  by  the  wages 
of  a  daughter  in  service.  Mrs.  Patton  had  of  late  years  suffered 
agonies  and  humiliations  indescribable,  from  a  terrilile  illness 
which  the  parish  doctor  was  quite  incompetent  to  treat,  being  all 
through  a  singularly  sensitive  Avoman,  with  a  natural  instinct  for 
the  decorous  and  the  beautiful. 

Amazing!  Starvation  wages;  hardships  of  sickness  and  pain; 
horrors  of  birth  and  horrors  of  death ;  wholesale  losses  of  kindred 
and  friends;  the  meanest  surroundings;  the  most  sordid  cares  — 
of  this  mingled  cvvp  of  village  fate  every  person  in  the  room  had 
di'unk,  and  drunk  deep.  Yet  here  in  this  autumn  twilight,  they 
laughed  and  chattered,  and  joked  —  weird,  wi'inkled  children,  en- 
joying an  hour's  rough  play  in  a  clearing  of  the  storm!  Dependent 
from  birth  to  death  on  squire,  p^i'son,  parish,  crushed  often,  and 
ill-treated,  according  to  their  own  ideas,  but  bearing  so  little  ill- 
will;  amusing  themselves  with  their  own  tragedies  even,  if  they 
could  but  sit  by  a  fire  and  drink  a  neighbour's  cup  of  tea. 

Her  heart  swelled  and  burned  within  her.  Yes,  the  old  people 
were  jiast  hoping  for ;  mere  wreck  and  driftwood  on  the  shore,  the 
spring-tide  of  death  would  soon  have  swept  them  all  into  unre- 
membered  graves.  But  the  yoimg  men  and  women,  the  children, 
were  they  too  to  grow  up,  and  grow  old  like  these  —  the  same  smil- 
ing, stunted,  ignobly  submissive  creatures?  One  woman  at  least 
would  do  her  best  Avith  her  one  poor  life  to  rouse  some  of  them  to 
discontent  and  revolt ! 

CHAPTER   IX 

The  fire  sank,  and  Mrs.  Hurd  made  no  haste  to  liglit  Jaer  lamp, 
Soon  the  old  people  were  dim  chattering  shapes  in  a  red  darkness. 
Mrs.  Hurd  still  plaited,  silent  and  upright,  lifting  her  head  every 
now  and  then  at  each  sound  ujion  the  road. 

At  last  there  was  a  knock  at  the  door.  JNIrs.  Hurd  ran  to 
open  it. 

"Mother,  I'm  going  your  way,"  said  a  strident  voice.  "I'll  help 
you  home  if  you've  a  mind." 

On  the  threshold  stood  INIrs.  Jellison's  daughter,  Mrs.  Westall, 
with  her  little  boy  beside  her,  the  woman's  broad  shoulders  and 
harsh  striking  head  standing  out  against  the  pale  sky  behind. 
Marcella  noticed  that  she  greeted  none  of  the  old  people,  nor  they 
her.  And  as  for  Mrs.  Hurd,  as  soon  as  she  saw  the  keeper's  wife, 
she  turned  her  back  abruptly  on  her  visitor,  and  walked  to  the 
other  end  of  the  kitchen. 

"  Are  you  comin',  mother  ?  "  repeated  Isabella. 

Mrs.  Jellison  grumbled,  gibed  at  her,  a.nd  made  long  leave-tak- 


CHAP.  IX  MARCELLA  85 

iiigs,  wliile  the  daughter  stood  silent,  waiting,  and  every  now  and 
then  peering  at  jMai'ceUa,  who  had  never  seen  her  before. 

"  I  don'  know  where  yur  manners  is,"  said  Mrs.  Jellison  sharply 
to  her,  as  though  she  had  been  a  child  of  ten,  "  that  you  don't  say 
good  evenin'  to  the  young  lady." 

Mrs.  Westall  curtsied  low,  and  hoped  she  might  be  excused,  as 
it  had  grown  so  dark.  Her  tone  was  smooth  and  servile,  and 
]\Iarcella  disliked  her  as  she  shook  hands  witii  her. 

The  other  old  people,  including  Mrs.  Brunt,  departed  a  minute 
or  two  after  the  mother  and  daughter,  and  Marcella  was  left  an 
instant  with  Mrs.  Hurd. 

"  Oh,  thank  you,  thank  you  kindly,  miss,"  said  Mrs.  Ilurd,  rais- 
ing her  apron  to  her  eyes  to  staunch  some  irrepressible  tears,  as 
Marcella  showed  her  the  advertisement  which  it  might  possibly  be 
worth  Kurd's  while  to  answer.  "  He'll  try,  you  may  be  sure. 
But  I  can't  think  as  how  anythink  'ull  come  ov  it." 

And  then  suddenly,  as  though  sometliing  unexplained  had  upset 
her  self-control,  the  poor  patient  creature  utterly  broke  down. 
Leaning  against  the  bare  shelves  which  held  their  few  pots  and 
pans,  she  threw  her  apron  over  her  head  and  burst  into  the  for- 
lornest  weeping.  "  I  wish  I  was  dead ;  I  wish  1  was  dead,  an'  the 
chillen  too !  " 

JMarcella  hung  over  her,  one  flame  of  passionate  pity,  comforting, 
soothing,  promising  help.  Mrs.  Hurd  presently  recovered  enough 
to  tell  her  that  Hurd-  had  gone  off  that  morning  before  it  was 
light  to  a  farm  near  Thame,  wliere  it  had  been  told  him  he  might 
possibly  find  a  job. 

"But  he'll  not  find  it,  miss,  he'll  not  find  it,"  she  said,  twisting 
her  hands  in  a  sort  of  restless  misery ;  "  there's  nothing  good  hap- 
pens to  such  as  us.  An'  he  wor  alius  a  one  to  work  if  he  could 
get  it." 

There  was  a  sound  outside.  Mrs.  Hurd  flew  to  the  door,  and  a 
short,  deformed  man,  with  a  large  head  and  red  hair,  stumbled  in 
blindly,  splashed  with  mud  up  to  his  waist,  and  evidently  spent 
with  long  walking. 

He  stopped  on  the  threshold,  straining  his  eyes  to  see  through 
the  fire-lit  gloom. 

"It's  Miss  Boyce,  Jim,"  said  his  wife.  "Did  you  hear  of  any- 
think ?  " 

"  They're  turnin'  off  hands  instead  of  takin'  ov  'em  on,"  he  said 
briefly,  and  fell  into  a  chair  by  the  grate. 

He  had  hardly  gTeeted  Marcella,  who  had  certainly  looked  to  be 
greeted.  Ever  since  her  arrival  in  August,  as  she  had  told  Aldous 
Raeburn,  she  had  taken  a  warm  interest  in  this  man  and  his  family. 
There  was  somethinq;  about  them  which  marked  them  out  a  bit 


86  MARCELLA  book  i 

from  their  fellows  —  whether  it  was  the  husband's  strange  but  not 
repulsive  deformity,  contrasted  with  the  touch  of  plaintive  grace 
in  the  wife,  or  the  charm  of  the  elfish  children,  with  their  tiny 
stick-like  a,rms  and  legs,  and  the  glancing  wildness  of  their  blue 
eyes,  under  the  frizzle  of  red  hair,  which  shone  round  their  little 
sickly  faces.  Very  soon  she  had  begun  to  haunt  them  in  her  eager 
way,  to  try  and  penetrate  their  peasant  lives,  which  were  so  full  of 
enigma  and  attraction  to  her,  mainly  because  of  their  very  defec- 
tiveness, their  closeness  to  an  animal  simplicity,  never  to  be  reached 
by  anyone  of  her  sort.  She  soon  discovered  or  imagined  that  Hurd 
had  more  education  than  his  neighbours.  At  any  rate,  he  would 
sit  listening  to  her — and  smoking,  as  she  made  him  do  —  while 
she  talked  politics  and  socialism  to  him ;  and  though  he  said  little 
in  return,  she  made  the  most  of  it,  and  was  sure  anj^way  that  he 
was  glad  to  see  her  come  in,  and  must  some  time  read  the  labour 
newspapers  and  Venturist  leaflets  she  brought  him,  for  they  were 
always  well  thumbed  before  they  came  back  to  her. 

But  to-night  his  sidlen  weariness  would  make  no  effort,  and  the 
hunted  restless  glances  he  threw  from  side  to  side  as  he  sat  crouch- 
ing over  the  fire  —  the  large  mouth  tight  shut,  the  nostrils  working 
—  showed  her  that  he  would  be  glad  when  she  went  away. 

Her  you.ng  exacting  temper  was  piqued.  She  had  been  for  some 
time  trj'ing  to  arrange  their  lives  for  them.  So,  in  spite  of  his 
dumb  resistance,  she  lingered  on,  questioning  and  suggesting.  As 
to  the  advertisement  she  had  brought  down,- he  put  it  aside  almost 
without  looking  at  it.  "  There  ud  be  a  hun'erd  men  after  it  before 
ever  he  could  get  there,"  was  all  he  would  say  to  it.  Then  she 
enquired  if  he  had  been  to  ask  the  steward  of  the  Maxwell  Court 
estate  for  work.  He  did  not  answer,  but  Mrs.  Hurd  said  timidly 
that  she  heard  tell  a  new  drive  was  to  be  made  that  winter  for  the 
sake  of  giving  einplojnnent.  But  their  own  men  on  the  estate 
would  come  first,  and  there  were  i^lenty  of  them  out  of  work. 

"  Well,  but  there  is  the  game,"  persisted  Marcella.  "  Isn't  it 
possible  they  might  want  some  extra  men  now  the  pheasant  shoot- 
ing has  begun?  I  might  go  and  enquire  of  Westall  —  I  know  him 
a  little." 

The  wife  made  a  startled  movement,  and  Hurd  raised  his  mis- 
shapen form  with  a  jerk. 

"  Thank  yer,  miss,  but  I'll  not  trouble  yer.  I  don't  want  nothing 
to  do  with  Westall." 

And  taking  up  a  bit  of  half-burnt  wood  which  lay  on  the  hearth, 
he  threw  it  violently  back  into  the  grate.  IMarcella  looked  from 
one  to  the  other  with  surprise.  Mrs.  Hurd's  expression  was  one 
of  miserable  discomfort,  and  she  kejit  twisting  her  a^iron  in  her 
gnarled  hands. 


CHAP.  IX  MARCELLA  87 

"  Yes,  I  shall  tell,  Jim  !  "  she  broke  out.  "  I  shall.  T  know  Miss 
Boyce  is  one  as  uU  understand  —  " 

Hurd  turned  round  and  looked  at  his  wife  full.  l>ut  she  per- 
sisted. 

"  You  see,  miss,  they  don't  speak,  don't  Jim  and  George  Westall. 
When  Jim  was  quite  a  lad  he  was  employed  at  Mellor,  under  old 
Westall,  George's  father  as  was.  Jim  was  *  watcher,'  and  young 
Geoi'ge  he  was  assistant.  That  was  in  Mr.  Robert's  days,  you 
iinderstand,  miss  —  when  Master  Harold  was  alive  ;  and  they  took 
a  deal  o'  trouble  about  the  game.  An'  George  Westall,  he  was 
allays  leading  the  others  a  life  —  tale-bearing  an'  spyin',  an'  settin' 
his  father  against  any  of  'em  as  didn't  give  in  to  him.  An',  oh, 
he  behaved  fearful  to  Jim !  Jim  nil  tell  you.  Now,  Jim,  what's 
wrong  with  you  —  why  shouldn't  I  tell?" 

For  Hurd  had  risen,  and  as  he  and  his  wife  looked  at  each  other 
a  sort  of  mute  conversation  seemed  to  pass  between  them.  Then 
he  turned  angrily,  and  went  out  of  the  cottage  by  the  back  door 
into  the  garden. 

The  wife  sat  in  some  agitation  a  moment,  then  she  resumed. 
"  He  can't  bear  no  talk  about  Westall  —  it  seems  to  drive  him  silly. 
But  I  say  as  how  people  should  know." 

Her  wavering  eye  seemed  to  interrogate  her  companion.  Mar- 
cella  was  puzzled  by  her  manner  —  it  was  so  far  from  simjjle. 

"  But  that  was  long  ago,  surely,"  she  said. 

"Yes,  it  wor  long  ago,  but  you  don't  forget  them  things,  miss! 
An'  Westall,  he's  just  the  same  sort  as  he  was  then,  so  folks  say," 
she  added  hurriedly.  "  You  see  Jim,  miss,  how  he's  made  ?  His 
back  was  twisted  that  way  when  he  was  a  little  un.  His  father 
was  a  good  old  man  —  everybody  spoke  well*  of  'im  —  but  his  . 
mother,  she  was  a  queer  mad  body,  with  red  hair,  just  lik?^lTm  and 
the  children,  and  a  temper!  my  word.  They  do  say  she  was  an 
Irish  girl,  out  of  a  gang  as  used  to  work  near  here  —  an'  she  let 
him  drop  one  day  when  she  was  in  liquor,  an'  never  took  no  trouble 
about  him  afterwards.  He  was  a  poor  sickly  lad,  he  was !  you'd 
wonder  how  he  grew  up  at  all.  And  oh !  George  Westall  he  treated 
him  cruel.  He'd  kick  and  swear  at  him ;  then  he'd  dare  him  to 
fight,  an'  thrash  him  till  the  others  came  in,  an'  got  him  away. 
Then  he'd  carry  tales  to  his  father,  and  one  day  old  Westall  beat 
Jim  within  an  inch  of  'is  life,  with  a  strap  end,  because  of  a  lie 
George  told  'im.  The  poor  chap  lay  in  a  ditch  under  Disley  Wood 
all  day,  because  he  was  that  knocked  about  he  couldn't  walk,  and 
at  night  he  crawled  home  on  his  hands  and  knees.  He's  shown  me 
the  place  many  a  time  !  Then  he  told  his  father,  and  next  morn- 
ing he  told  me,  as  he  couldn't  stand  it  no  longer,  an'  he  never  went 
back  no  more." 


88  MARCELLA  book  i 

"And  he  told  no  one  else?  —  he  never  complained  V"  asked  Mar- 
cella,  indignantly. 

"What  ud  ha  been  the  good  o"  that,  miss?"  Mrs.  Hurd  said, 
wondering.  "  Nobody  ud  ha  taken  his  word  agen  old  Westall's. 
Edit  he  come  and  told  me.  I  was  housemaid  at  Lady  Leven's  then, 
an'  he  and  his  father  were  old  friends  of  ourn.  And  I  knew 
George  Westall  too.  He  used  to  walk  out  with  me  of  a  Sunday, 
just  as  civil  as  could  be,  and  give  my  mother  rabbits  now  and 
again,  and  do  anything  I'd  ask  him.  An'  I  up  and  told  him  he 
was  .a  brute  to  go  ill-treatin'  a  sickly  fellow  as  couldn't  pay  him 
back.  That  made  him  as  cross  as  vinegar,  an'  when  Jim  began  to 
be  about  with  me  ov  a  Sunday  sometimes,  instead  of  him,  he  got 
madder  and  nuidder.  An'  Jim  asked  me  to  marry  him  —  he  begged 
of  me  —  an'  I  didn't  know  what  to  say.  For  Westall  liad  asked  me 
twice;  an'  I  was  afeard  of  Jim's  health,  an'  the  low  wages  he'd 
get,  an'  of  not  bein'  strong  myself.  But  one  day  I  was  going  up  a 
lane  into  Tudley  End  woods,  an'  I  heard  George  Westall  on  tother 
side  of  the  hedge  with  a  young  dog  he  was  training.  Somethin' 
crossed  him,  an'  he  flew  into  a  passion  with  it.  It  turned  me  sick. 
I  ran  away  and  I  took  against  him  there  and  then.  I  was  fright- 
ened of  him.  I  duresn't  trust  myself,  and  I  said  to  Jim  I'd  take 
him.  So  you  can  understan',  miss,  can't  you,  as  Jim  don't  want  to 
have  nothing  to  do  with  Westall?  Thank  you  kindly,  all  the  same," 
she  added,  breaking  off  her  narrative  with  the  same  uncertainty 
of  manner,  the  same  timid  scrutiny  of  her  visitor  that  Marcella 
had  noticed  before. 

Marcella  replied  that  she  could  certainly  understand. 

"  But  I  suppose  they've  not  got  in  each  other's  way  of  late  j^ears," 
she  said  as  she  rose  to  go. 

"Oh!  no,  miss,  no,"  said  ]\Irs.  Hurd  as  she  went  hurriedly  to 
fetch  a  fur  tippet  which  her  visitor  had  laid  down  on  the  dresser. 

"  Thei'e  is  one  person  I  can  speak  to,"  said  IMarcella,  as  she  put 
on  the  wrap.  "And  I  will."  Against  her  wall  she  reddened  a 
little  ;  but  she  had  not  been  able  to  help  throwing  out  the  promise. 
"  And  now,  you  won't  despair,  will  you  ?  You'll  trust  me  ?  I  could 
always  do  something." 

She  took  Mrs.  Hurd's  hand  with  a  sweet  look  and  gesture.  Stand- 
ing there  in  her  tall  vigorous  youth,  her  furs  wa-apped  about  her, 
she  had  the  air  of  protecting  and  guiding  this  poverty  that  could 
not  help  itself.  The  mother  and  wife  felt  herself  shy,  intimidated. 
The  tears  came  back  to  her  brown  eyes. 

When  Miss  Boyce  had  gone,  Minta  Hurd  went  to  the  fire  and 
put  it  together,  sighing  ^-lll  the  time,  her  face  still  red  and  miser- 
able. 


CHAP.  IX  MARCELLA  89 

Tlie  door  opened  and  her  liusbaiid  came  in.  He  carried  some 
potatoes  in  his  great  earth-stained  hands. 

"You're  goin'  to  put  that  bit  of  hare  on?  AVell,  mak' eeaste, 
do,  for  I'm  starvin".  Wluit  did  she  want  to  stay  all  that  time  for? 
You  go  and  get  it.  I'll  blow  the  lire  np  —  damn  these  sticks!  — 
they're  as  wet  as  Dugnall  pond." 

Nevertheless,  as  she  sadly  came  and  went,  preparing  the  supper, 
she  saw  that  he  was  appeased,  in  a  better  tempef  than  before. 

"  What  did  you  tell  'er?"  he  asked  abruptly. 

"  AViiat  do  you  spose  I'd  tell  her  ?  I  acted  for  the  best.  I'm 
always  thiidvin'  for  you  !  "  she  said  as  though  with  a  little  crj"^,  "or 
we'd  soon  be  in  trouble  —  worse  trouble  than  we  are  !  "  she  added 
miserably. 

He  stopped  working  the  old  bellows  for  a  moment,  and,  holding 
his  long  chin,  stared  into  the  flames.  With  his  deformity,  his 
earth-stains,  his  blue  eyes,  his  brown  wrinkled  skin,  and  his  shock 
of  red  hair,  he  had  the  look  of  soirie  strange  gnome  crouching 
there. 

"I  don't  know  what  you're  at,  I'll  swear,"  he  said  after  a  pause. 
"I  ain't  in  any  pertickler  trouble  just  now  —  if  yer  wouldn't  send 
a  fellow  stumpin'  the  country  for  nothink.  If  you'll  just  let  me 
alone  I'll  get  a  livin'  for  you  and  the  chillen  right  enough.  Don't 
you  trouble  yourself  —  an'  hold  your  tongue  !  " 

She  threw  down  her  apron  with  a  gesture  of  despair  as  she  stood 
beside  him,  in  front  of  the  fire,  watching  the  jian. 

"What  am  I  to  do,  Jim,  an'  them  chillen  —  when  you're  took  to 
prison?  "  she  asked  him  vehemently. 

"  I  shan't  get  took  to  prison,  I  tell  yer.  All  the  same,  Westall 
got  holt  o'  me  this  mouiin'.     I  thought  praps  you'd  better  know." 

Her  exclamation  of  terror,  her  wild  look  at  him,  were  exactly 
what  he  had  expected  ;  nevertheless,  he  flinched  before  them.  His 
brutality  was  mostly  assumed.  He  had  adopted  it  as  a  mask  for 
more  than  a  year  past,  because  he  musi  go  his  way,  and  she  worried 
him. 

"Now  look  here,"  he  said  resolutely'',  "it  don't  matter.  I'm  not 
goin'  to  be  took  by  AVestall.  I'd  kill  him  or  myself  first.  But  he 
caught  me  lookin'  at  a  snare  this  mornin'  —  it  wor  misty,  and  I 
didn't  see  no  one  comin'.  It  wor  close  to  the  footpath,  and  it 
worn't  my  snare." 

"'Jim,  my  chap,'  says  he,  mockin',  'I'm  sorry  for  it,  but  I'm 
going  to  search  yer,  so  take  it  quietly,'  says  he.  He  had  young 
Dynes  with  him — so  I  didn't  say  nought — I  kep'  as  still  as  a 
mouse,  an'  sure  enough  he  put  his  iigly  ban's  into  all  my  pockets. 
An'  what  do  yer  think  he  foun'  ?" 

"  What?  "  she  said  breathlessly. 


90  MARCELLA  book  i 

"  Nothiiik !  "  he  laughed  out.  "  Xary  an  end  c  string,  nor  a 
kink  o'  wire  —  nothink.  I'd  hidden  the  two  rabbits  I  got  his'  night, 
and  all  my  bits  o'  things  in  a  ditch  far  enough  out  o'  his  way.  I 
jiist  laughed  at  the  look  ov  'im.  '  I'll  have  the  law  on  yer  for 
assault  an'  battery,  yer  damned  miscalculatin'  brute ! '  says  I  to 
him — why  don't  yer  get  that  boy  there  to  teach  yer  your  busi- 
ne.ss?'  An'  off  I  walked.  Don't  you  be  afeared  —  'ee'll  never  lay 
hands  on  me  !  " 

But  Minta  was  sore  afraid,  and  went  on  talking  and  lamenting 
while  she  made  the  tea.  He  took  little  heed  of  her.  He  sat  by^ 
the  fire  quivering  and  thinking.  In  a  public-house  two  nights 
before  this  one,  overtures  had  been  made  to  him  on  behalf  of  a 
well-known  gang  of  poachers  with  head-quarters  in  a  neighbouring 
county  town,  who  had  tlieir  eyes  on  the  pheasant  preserves  in  West- 
all's  particular  beat  —  the  Tudley  End  beat  —  and  wanted  a  local 
watcher  and  accomplice.  He  had  thoiight  the  matter  at  first  too 
dangerous  to  touch.  jNIoreover,  he  w  as  at  that  moment  in  a  period 
of  transition,  pestered  by  ]\Iiuta  to  give  up  "  the  poachin',"  and  yet 
drawn  back  to  it  after  his  spring  and  sunnner  of  field  work  by 
instincts  onl}^  recently  revived,  after  long  dormancy,  but  now  hard 
to  resist. 

Presently  he  turned  with  anger  upon  .one  of  Minta's  wjiils  which 
happened  to  reach  him. 

"Look  'ere!"  said  he  to  Tier,  "where  ud  you  an-  the  chillen  he 
this  night  if  I  'adn't  done  it  ?  'Adn't  we  got  rid  of  every  stick  o 
stuff  we  iver  'ad?  'Ere's  a  well-furnished  place  for  a  chap  to  sit 
in  ! "  —  he  glanced  bitterly  round  the  bare  kitchen,  which  had  none 
of  the  little  properties  of  the  coiintry  poor,  no  chest,  no  set  of  mahog- 
any drawers,  no  comfortable  chair,  nothing,  but  the  dresser  and  the 
few  rush  chairs  and  the  table,  and  a  few  odds  and  ends  of  crockery 
and  household  stuff — "  woiildn't  we  all  a  bin  on  the  parish,  if  we 
'adn't  starved  fust  —  wouldn't  vfe'f  —  jes' answer  me  that  1  Didn't 
we  sit  here  an'  starve,  till  the  bones  was  comin'  through  the  chil- 
len's  skin?  —  didn't  we? " 

That  he  could  still  argue  the  point  with  her  showed  tlie  inner 
vulnerableness,  the  inner  need  of  her  aifection  and  of  peace  with 
lier,  which  he  still  felt,  far  as  certain  new  habits  were  lieginning 
to  sweep  him  from  her. 

"  It's  Westall  or  Jenkins  (Jenkins  was  the  village  policeman) 
havin'  the  Imo  on  yer,  Jim,"  she  said  with  emphasis,  putting  down 
a  cup  and  looking  at  him — "it's  the  thought  of  tJiat  makes  me 
cold  in  my  back.  None  o'  my  people  was  ever  in  prison  —  an'  if  it 
'appened  to  you  I  should  just  die  of  shame  !  " 

"  Then  yer'd  better  take  and  read  them  papers  there  as  she 
brought,"  he  said  impatiently,  first   jerking  his  finger   over   his 


CHAP.  IX  MARCELLA  91 

shoulder  in  the  direction  of  jNIellor  to  indicate  Miss  Boyce,  and 
then  pointing  to  a  heap  of  newspapers  Vvhich  Itij  on  the  floor  in  a 
corner,  "  they'd  tell  yer  summat  about  the  shame  o'  makin'  them 
game-laws  —  not  o'  breakin'  ov  'em.  But  I'm  sick  o'  this !  AVhere's 
them  chillen  ?     Wliy  do  j'er  let  that  boy  out  so  late  ?  " 

And  opening  the  door  he  stood  on  the  threshold  looking  up 
and  down  the  village  street,  while  Minta  once  more  gave  up  the 
struggle,  dried  her  eyes,  and  told  herself  to  be  cheerful.  But  it 
was  hard.  She  was  far  better  born  and  better  educated  than  her 
husband.  Her  father  had  been  a  small  master  chairmaker  in 
Wycombe,  and  her  mother,  a  lackadaisical  silly  woman,  had  given 
her  her  "fine  "  name  by  way  of  additional  proof  that  she  and  her 
children  were  something  out  of  the  common.  Moreover,  she  had 
the  conforming  law-abiding  instincts  of  the  well-treated  domestic 
servant,  who  has  lived  on  kindly  terms  with  the  gentry  and  shared 
their  standards.  And  for  years  after  their  marriage  Hurd  had 
allowed  her  to  govern  him.  He  had  been  so  patient,  so  hard-work- 
ing;, such  a  kind  husband  and  father,  so  full  of  a  dumb  wish  to 
show^  her  he  w'as  grateful  to  her  for  marrying  such  a  fellow  as  he. 
The  quarrel  with  AVestall  seemed  to  have  sunk  out  of  his  mind. 
He  never  spoke  to  or  of  him.  Low  wages,  the  burden  of  quick- 
coming  children,  the  bad  sanitaiy  conditions  of  their  wretched 
cottage,  and  poor  health,  had  made  their  lives  one  long  and  sordid 
struggle.  But  for  years  he  had  borne  his  load  with  extraordinary 
patience.  Pie  and  his  could  just  exist,  and  the  man  who  had  been 
in  youth  the  lonely  victim  of  his  neighbours'  scorn  had  found  a 
woman  to  give  him  all  herself  and  children  to  love.  Hence  years 
of  submission,  a  hidden  flowering  time  for  both  of  them. 

Till  that  last  awful  winter  ! — the  winter  before  Richard  Boyce's 
succession  to  Mellor  —  when  the  farmers  had  been  mostly  ruined, 
and  half  the  able-bodied  men  of  Mellor  had  tramped  "  up  into  the. 
smoke,"  as  the  village  put  it,  in  search  of  London  work  —  then, 
out  of  actual  sheer  starvation  —  that  very  rare  excuse  of  the 
poacher!  —  Hurd  had  gone  one  night  and  snared  a  hare  on  the 
Mellor  land.  Would  the  Avife  and  mother  ever  forget  the  pure 
animal  satisfaction  of  that  meal,  or  the  fearful  joy  of  the  next 
night,  w"hen  lie  got  three  shillings  from  a  local  publican  for  a  hare 
and  two  rabbits? 

But  after  the  first  relief  Minta  had  gone  in  fear  and  trembling. 
For  the  old  woodcraft  rcAaved  in  Hurd.  and  the  old  passion  for 
the  fields  and  their  chances  which  he  had  felt  as  a  liid  before  his 
"  watcher's  "  place  had  been  made  intolerable  to  him  by  George 
Westall's  bullying.  He  became  excited,  unmanageable.  Very  soon 
he  was  no  longer  content  with  j\Iellor,  where,  since  the  death  of 
young  Harold,  the  heir,  the  keepers  had  been  dismissed,  and  what 


92  MAKCELLA  book  i 

remained  of  a  once  numei'ons  head  of  game  lay  open  to  the  wiles 
of  all  the  bold  sjiirits  of  the  neighbourhood.  He  must  needs  go 
on  to  those  woods  of  Lord  Maxwell's,  which  girdled  the  Mellor 
estate  on  three  sides.  And  hei-e  he  came  once  more  across  his 
enemy.  For  George  Westall  was  now  in  the  far  better-paid  service 
of  the  Court  —  and  a  very  clever  keepei",  with  designs  on  the  head 
keeper's  post  whenever  it  might  be  vacant.  In  the  case  of  a 
poacher  he  had  the  scent  of  one  of  his  own  hares.  It  was  known 
to  him  in  an  incredibly  short  time  that  that  "  low  caselty  fellow 
Hurd  "  was  attacking  "  his  "  game. 

Hurd,  notwithstanding,  was  cunning  itself,  and  Westall  lay  in 
w^ait  for  him  in  vain.  Meanvv'hile,  all  the  old  hatred  between  the 
two  men  revived.  Hurd  drank  this  winter  more  than  he  had  ever 
drunk  yet.  It  was  necessary  to  keep  on  good  terms  with  one  or 
two  publicans  who  acted  as  "  receivers  "  of  the  poached  game  of 
the  neighbourhood.  And  it  seemed  to  him  that  Westall  pursued 
him  into  these  low  dens.  The  keeper  —  big,  burly,  prosperous  — 
would  speak  to  him  with  insolent  patronage,  watching  him  all  the 
time,  or  with  the  old  brutality,  which  Hurd  dared  not  resent. 
Only  in  his  excitable  dwarf's  sense  hate  grew  and  throve,  very 
soon  to  monstrous  proportions.  Westall's  menacing  figure  dark- 
ened all  his  sky  for  him.  His  poaching,  besides  a  means  of  liveli- 
hood, became  more  and  more  a  silent  duel  between  him  and  his 
boyhood's  tyrant. 

And  now,  after  seven  months  of  regular  field-w.ork  and  respect- 
able living,  it  was  all  to  l)egin  again  with  the  new  winter !  The 
same  shudders  and  terrors,  the  same  shames  before  the  gentry  and 
Mr.  Harden  !  —  the  soft,  timid  woman  with  her  conscience  could 
not  endure  the  prospect.  For  some  weeks  after  the  harvest  was 
over  she  struggled.  He  had  begun  to  go  out  again  at  nights. 
But  she  drove  him  to  look  for  employment,  and  lived  in  tears 
when  he  failed. 

As  for  him,  she  knew  that  he  was  glad  to  fail ;  there  was  a  cer- 
tain ease  and  jauntiness  in  his  air  to-night  as  he  stood  calling  the 
children : 

"  Will !  —  you  come  in  at  once  !     Daisy  !  —  Nellie  ! " 

Two  little  figures  came  pattering  up  the  street  in  the  moist 
October  dusk,  a  third  panted  behind.  The  girls  ran  in  to  their 
mother  chattering  and  laughing.     Hurd  lifted  the  boy  in  his  arm. 

"  Where  you  bin.  Will  ?  What  were  yo  oiit  for  in  this  nasty 
damp  ?  I've  brought  yo  a  whole  pocket  full  o'  chestnuts,  and 
summat  else  too." 

He  carried  him  in  to  the  fire  and  sat  him  on  his  knees.  Tlie 
little  emaciated  creature,  flushed  with  the  pleasure  of  his  father's 
company,  played  contentedly  in  the  intervals  of  coughing  with -the 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  93 

shining  chestnuts,  or  ate  his  slice  of  the  fine  pear  —  the  gift  of  a 
friend  iu  Thame  —  Avhich  ]iroved  to  be  tlie  "  summat  else "  of 
promise.  Tlie  curtains  were  close-drawn  ;  the  paraffin  lamp  flared 
on  the  table,  and  as  the  savoury  smell  of  the  hare  and  onions  on 
the  fire  filled  the  kitchen,  the  whole  family  gathered  round  watch- 
ing for  the  moment  of  eating.  The  fire  played  on  the  thin  leg's 
and  pinched  faces  of  the  children ;  on  the  baby's  cradle  in  the 
further  corner ;  on  the  mother,  red-eyed  still,  but  able  to  smile  and 
talk  again ;  on  the  strange  Celtic  face  and  matted  hair  of  the 
dwarf.  Family  affection  —  and  the  satisfaction  of  the  simpler 
physical  needs  —  these  things  make  the  happiness  of  the  poor. 
For  this  hour,  to-night,  the  Hurds  were  happy. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  lane  outside,  Marcella,  as  she  walked  home, 
passed  a  tall  broad-shouldered  man  in  a  velveteen  suit  and  gaiters, 
his  gun  over  his  shoulder  and  two  dogs  behind  him,  his  pockets 
bulging  on  either  side.  He  walked  with  a  kind  of  military  air, 
and  touched  his  cap  to  her  as  he  passed. 

Marcella  barely  nodded. 

"Tyrant  and  bully ! "  she  thought  to  herself  with  Mrs.  Kurd's 
story  in  her  mind.  "  Yet  no  doubt  he  is  a  valuable  keeper ;  Lord 
Maxwell  would  be  sorry  to  lose  him  !  It  is  the  system  makes  such 
men  —  and  must  have  them." 

The  clatter  of  a  pony  carriage  disturbed  her  thoughts.  A  small, 
elderly  lady,  in  a  very  large  mushroom  hat,  drove  past  her  in  the 
dusk  and  bowed  stiffly.  JNIarcella  was  so  taken  by  surprise  that 
she  barely  returned  the  bow.  Then  she  looked  after  the  carriage. 
That  was  Miss  Raeburn. 

To-morrow ! 

CHAPTER   X 

"  Won't  you  sit  nearer  to  the  window  ?  We  are  rather  proud 
of  our  view  at  this  time  of  year,"  said  Miss  Raeburn  to  Marcella, 
taking  her  visitor's  jacket  from  her  as  she  spoke,  and  laying  it 
aside.  "  Lady  Winterbourne  is  late,  but  she  will  come,  I  am  sure. 
She  is  very  precise  about  engagements." 

Marcella  moved  her  chair  nearer  to  the  great  bow-window,  and 
looked  out  over  the  sloping  gardens  of  the  Court,  and  the  autumn 
splendour  of  the  woods  girdling  them  in  on  all  sides.  She  held  her 
head  nervously  erect,  was  not  apparently  much  inclined  to  talk, 
and  Miss  Raeburn,  who  had  resumed  her  knitting  within  a  few 
paces  of  her  guest,  said  to  herself  presently  after  a  few  minutes' 
,  conversation  on  the  weather  and  the  walk  from  Mellor :  "  Difficult 
—  decidedly  difficult  —  and  too  much  manner  for  a  young  gii'l. 
But  the  most  picturesque  creature  I  ever  set  eyes  on  !  " 


94  MARCELLA  book  r 

Lord  Maxwell's  sister  was  an  excellent  woman,  the  inquisitive, 
benevolent  despot  of  all  the  Maxwell  villages ;  and  one  of  the 
soundest  Tories  still  left  to  a  degenerate  party  and  a  changing 
time.  Her  brother  and  her  great-nephew  represented  to  her  the 
flower  of  human  kind ;  she  had  never  been  capable,  and  probably 
never  would  be  capable,  of  quarrelling  with  either  of  them  on  any 
subject  whatever.  At  the  same  time  she  had  her  rights  with  them. 
She  was  at  any  rate  their  natural  guardian  in  those  matters, 
relating  to  womankind,  where  men  are  confessedly  given  to  folly. 
She  had  accordingly  kept  a  shrewd  eye  in  Aldous's  interest  on  all 
the  young  ladies  of  the  neighbourhood  for  many  years  past ;  knew 
perfectly  well  all  that  he  might  have  done,  and  sighed  over  all  that 
he  had  so  far  left  undone. 

At  the  present  moment,  in  s^Dite  of  the  even  good-breeding  with 
which  she  knitted  and  chattered  beside  Marcella,  she  was  in  truth 
consumed  with  curiosity,  conjecture,  and  alarm  on  the  subject  of 
this  Miss  Boyce.  Profoundly  as  they  trusted  each  other,  the  Rae- 
burns  were  not  on  the  svu'face  a  communicative  family.  Neither 
her  brother  nor  Aldous  had  so  far  bestowed  any  direct  confidence 
upon  her ;  but  the  course  of  affairs  had,  notwithstanding,  aroused 
her  very  keenest  attention.  In  the  first  place,  as  we  know,  the 
mistress  of  Maxvs'ell  Court  had  left  Mellor  and  its  new  occupants 
unvisited ;  she  had  plainly  understood  it  to  be  her  brother's  wish 
that  she  should  do  so.  How,  indeed,  could  you  kuov.'  the  women 
without  knowing  Richard  Boyce  ?  'which,  according  to  Lord  Max- 
well, was  impossible.  And  now  it  was  Lord  Maxwell  who  had 
suggested  not  only  that  after  all  it  would  be  kind  to  call  upon  the 
poor  things,  who  were  heavily  weighted  enough  already  with  Dick 
Boyce  for  husband  and  father,  but  that  it  would  be  a  graceful 
act  on  his  sister's  part  to  ask  the  girl  and  her  mother  to  luncheon. 
Dick  Boyce  of  course  must  be  made  to  keep  his  distance,  but  the 
resources  of  civilisation  were  perhaps  not  unequal  to  the  task  of 
discriminating,  if  it  were  prudently  set  about.  At  any  rate  Miss 
Raeburn  gathei'ed  that  she  was  expected  to  try,  and  instead  of 
pressing  her  brother  for  explanations  she  held  her  tongue,  paid 
her  call  forthwith,  and  wrote  her  note. 

But  although  Aldous,  thinking  no  doubt  that  he  had  been 
already  sufficiently  premature,  had  said  nothing  at  all  as  .to  his 
own  feelings  to  his  great-aunt,  she  knew  perfectly  vvfell  that  he  had 
said  a  great  deal  on  the  subject  of  Miss  Boyce  and  her  mother  to 
Lady  Winterbourne,  the  only  woman  in  the  neighbourhood  with 
whom  he  was  ever  really  confidential.  No  woman,  of  coui'se,  in 
]\liss  Raeburn's  position,  and  with  IMiss  Raeburn's  general  interest 
in  her  kind,  could  have  been  ignorant  for  any  appreciable  number  of 
days  after  the  Boyces'  arrival  at  Mellor  that  they  possessed  a  hand- 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  95 

some  daughter,  of  whom  the  Hardens  in  particular  gave  striking 
but,  as  Miss  Raeburn  pi-ivately  thought,  by  no  means  wholly 
attractive  accounts.  And  now,  after  all  these  somewhat  agitating 
preliminaries,  here  was  the  girl  established  in  the  Court  drawing- 
I'oom,  Aldous  more  nervous  and  preoccupied  than  she  had  ever 
seen  him,  and  Lord  Maxwell  expressing  a  particular  anxiety  to 
return  from  his  Board  meeting  in  good  time  for  luncheon,  to 
which  he  had  especially  desired  that  Lady  AVinterbourne  should 
be  bidden,  and  no  one  else !  It  may  well  be  supposed  that  Miss 
Raeburn  was  on  the  alert. 

As  for  Marcella,  she  was  on  her  side  keenly  conscious  of  being 
observed,  of  having  her  way  to  make.  Here  she  was  alone  among 
these  formidable  people,  whose  acquaintance  she  had  in  a  manner 
compelled.  Well  — what  blame?  "What  was  to  prevent  her  from 
doing  the  same  thing  again  to-morrow?  Her  conscience  was  abso- 
lutely clear.  If  they  were  not  ready  to  meet  her  in  the  same  spirit 
in  which  through  JNIr.  Raeburn  she  had  approached  them,  she 
would  know  perfectly  well  how  to  protect  herself  —  above  all,  how 
to  live  out  her  life  in  the  future  without  troubling  them. 

Meanwhile,  in  spite  of  her  dignity  and  those  inward  propitia- 
tions it  from  time  to  time  demanded,  she  was,  in  her  human  vivid 
way,  full  of  an  excitement  and  curiosity  she  could  hardly  conceal 
as  perfectly  as  she  desired  —  curiosity  as  to  the  great  house  and 
the  life  in  it,  especially  as  to  Aldous  Raeburn 's  part  therein.  She 
knew  very  little  indeed  of  the  class  to  which  by  birth  she  belonged; 
great  houses  and  great  people  were  strange  to  her.  She  brought 
her  artist's  and  student's  eyes  to  look  at  them  with ;  she  was  deter- 
mined not  to  be  dazzled  or  taken  in  by  them.  At  the  same  time, 
as  she  glanced  every  now  and  then  round  the  splendid  room  in 
which  they  sat,  with  its  Tudor  ceiling,  its  fine  pictures,  its  combi- 
nation of  every  luxury  with  every  refinement,  she  was  distinctly 
conscious  of  a  certain  thrill,  a  romantic  drawing  towards  the  state- 
liness  and  power  which  it  all  implied,  together  with  a  proud  and 
careless  sense  of  equality,  of  kinship  so  to  speak,  which  she  made 
light  of,  but  would  not  in  reality  have  been  without  for  the  world. 

In  birth  and  blood  she  had  nothing  to  yield  to  the  Raeburns  — 
so  her  mother  assured  her.  If  things  were  to  be  vulgarly  meas- 
ured, this  fact  too  must  come  in.  But  they  should  not  be  vulgarly 
measured.  She  did  not  believe  in  class  or  wealth  —  not  at  all. 
Only  —  as  her  mother  had  told  her — she  must  hold  her  head  up. 
An  inward  tempei-,  which  no  doubt  led  to  that  excess  of  manner 
of  which  J^Iiss  Raeburn  was  meanwhile  conscious. 

Where  were  the  gentlemen?  JMarcella  was  beginning  to  resent 
and  tire  of  the  innumerable  questions  as  to  her  likes  and  dislikes, 
her  accomplishments,  her  friends,  her  opinions  of  INIellor  and  the 


96  MARCELLA  book  i 

neighbourhood,  which  this  knitting  lady  beside  her  poured  out 
upon  her  so  briskly,  when  to  her  great  relief  the  door  opened  and 
a  footman  announced  "  Lady  Winterbourne." 

A  very  tall  thin  lady  in  black  entered  the  room  at  the  words. 
"  My  dear !  "  she  said  to  Miss  Raeburn,  "  I  am  very  late,  but  the 
roads  are  abominable,  and  those  horses  Edward  has  just  given  me 
have  to  be  taken  such  tiresome  care  of.  I  told  the  coachman  next 
time  he  might  wrap  them  in  shawls  and  put  them  to  bed,  and  1 
sliould  walk." 

"  You  are  quite  capable  of  it,  my  dear,"  said  Miss  Raeburn,  kiss- 
ing her.     "  "We  know  you !     Miss  Boyce  —  Lady  Winterbourne." 

Lady  Winterbourne  shook  hands  with  a  shy  awkwardness  which 
belied  her  height  and  stateliness.  As  she  sat  down  beside  Miss 
Raeburn  the  contrast  between  her  and  Lord  Maxwell's  sister  was 
sufficiently  striking.  Miss  Raeburn  was  short,  inclined  to  be  stout, 
and  to  a  certain  gay  profusion  in  her  attire.  Her  cap  was  made  of 
a  bright  silk  handkerchief  edged  with  lace  ;  round  her  neck  were 
hung  a  number  of  small  trinkets  on  various  gold  chains;  she 
abounded  too  in  bracelets,  most  of  which  were  clearly  old-fashioned 
mementos  of  dejaarted  relatives  or  friends.  Her  dress  was  a  cheer- 
ful red  verging  on  crimson ;  and  her  general  air  suggested  energy, 
bustle,  and  a  good-humoured  connnon  sense. 

Lady  Winterbourne,  on  the  other  hand,  was  not  only  dressed 
from  head  to  foot  in  severe  black  without  an  ornament ;  her  head 
and  face  belonged  also  to  the  same  impression,  as  of  some  strong 
and  forcible  study  in  black  and  white.  The  attitude  was  rigidly 
erect ;  the  very  dark  ej^es,  under  the  snowy  and  abundant  hair, 
had  a  trick  of  absent  staring ;  in  certain  aspects  the  whole  figure 
had  a  tragic,  nay,  formidable  dignity,  from  which  one  expected, 
and  sometimes  got,  the  tone  and  gesture  of  tragic  acting.  Yet  at 
the  same  time,  mixed  in  therewith,  a  curious  strain  of  womanish, 
nay  childish,  weakness,  appealingness.  Altogether,  a  great  lady, 
and  a  personality  —  yet  something  else  too  —  something  ill-assured, 
timid,  incongruous  —  hard  to  be  defined. 

"I  believe  you  have  not  been  at  Mellor  long?"  the  new-comer 
asked,  in  a  deep  contralto  voice  which  she  dragged  a  little. 

"  About  seven  weeks.  My  father  and  mother  have  been  there 
since  May." 

"  You  must  of  course  think  it  a  very  interesting  old  place  ?  " 

"  Of  course  I  do ;  1  love  it,"  said  Marcella,  disconcerted  by  the 
odd  habit  Lady  Winterbourne  had  of  fixing  her  eyes  upon  a 
person,  and  then,  as  it  were,  forgetting  what  she  had-  done  with 
them. 

"Oh,  I  haven't  been  there,  Agneta,"  said  the  new-comer,  turning 
after  a  pause  to  Miss  Raeburn,  "since  that  summer  —  ?/om  remem- 


CHAP.  X  MAIICELLA  97 

ber  that  party  when  the  Pahnerstons  came  over  —  so  long  ago  — 
twenty  years !  " 

Marcella  sat  stiffly  upright.  Lady  Winterbourne  grew  a  little 
nervous  and  flurried. 

"  I  don't  think  I  ever  saw  your  mother,  Miss  Boyce  —  I  was 
much  away  from  home  about  then.     Oh,  yes,  I  did  once  —  " 

The  speaker  stopped,  a  sudden  red  suffusing  her  pale  cheeks. 
She  had  felt  certain  somehow,  at  sight  of  INIarcella,  tliat  she  should 
say  or  do  something  untoward,  and  she  had  promptly  justified  her 
own  prevision.  The  only  time  she  had  ever  seen  JMrs.  Boyce  had 
been  in  court,  on  the  last  day  of  the  famous  trial  in  which  Richard 
Boyce  was  concerned,  when  she  had  made  out  the  wife  sitting 
closely  veiled  as  near  to  her  husband  as  possible,  waiting  for  the 
verdict.  As  she  had  already  confided  this  reminiscence  to  Miss 
Raeburn,  and  had  forgotten  she  had  done  so,  both  ladies  had  a 
moment  of  embarrassment. 

"Mrs.  Boyce,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  does  not  seem  to  be  strong," 
said  Miss  Raeburn,  bending  over  the  heel  of  her  stocking.  "  I  wish 
we  could  have  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  her  to-day." 

There  was  a  pause.  Lady  Wiuterbourne's  tragic  eyes  were  once 
more  considering  INIarcella. 

"  I  hope  you  will  come  and  feee  me,"  she  said  at  last  abruptly  — 
"  and  Mrs.  Boyce  too." 

The  voice  was  very  soft  and  refined  though  so  deep,  and  Mar- 
cella looking  up  was  suddenly  magnetised. 

"  Yes,  I  will,"  she  said,  all  her  face  melting  into  sensitive  life. 
"Mamma  won't  go  anywhere,  but  I  will  come,  if  you  will  ask 
me." 

"  Will  you  come  next  Tuesday  ? "  said  Lady  Winterbourne, 
quickly  —  "come  to  tea,  and  I  will  drive  you  back.  Mr.  Raeburn 
told  me  about  you.     He  says  —  you  read  a  great  deal." 

The  solemnity  of  the  last  words,  the  fixedness  of  the  tragic  look, 
were  not  to  be  resisted.  Marcella  laughed  out,  and  both  ladies 
simultaneously  thought  her  extraordinarily  radiant  and  handsome. 

"How  can  he  know?  Why,  I  have  hardly  talked  about  books 
to  him  at  all." 

"  Well !  here  he  comes,"  said  Lady  Winterbourne,  smiling  sud- 
denly ;  "  so  I  can  ask  him.     But  I  am  sure  he  did  say  so." 

It  was  now  INIarcella's  turn  to  colour.  Aldous  Raeburn  crossed 
the  room,  greeted  Lady  Winterbourne,  and  next  moment  she  felt 
her  hand  in  his. 

"  You  did  tell  me,  Aldous,  didn't  you,"  said  Lady  Winterbourne, 
"  that  Miss  Boyce  was  a  great  reader?" 

The  speaker  had  known  Aldous  Raeburn  as  a  boy,  and  was, 
moreover,  a  sort  of  cousin,  which  explained  the  Christian  name. 

H 


98  MARCELLA  book  i 

Aldous  smiled. 

"  I  said  I  thought  Miss  Boyce  was  like  you  and  me,  and  had  a 
weakness  that  way,  Lady  Wintevbourne.  But  I  won't  be  ctoss- 
examined !  " 

"  I  don't  think  I  am  a  gTeat  reader,"  said  Marcella,  bluntly  — 
"  at  least  I  read  a  great  deal,  but  I  hardly  ever  read  a  book  through. 
I  haven't  patience." 

"  You  want  to  get  at  everything  so  quickly  ?  "  said  Miss  Raeburn, 
looking  up  sharph'. 

"  I  suppose  so  !  "  said  Marcella.  "  There  seems  to  be  always  a 
hundred  things  tearing  one  different  ways,  and  no  time  lor  any  of 
thein." 

"  Yes,  when  one  is  young  one  feels  like  that,"  said  Lady  Winter- 
bourne,  sighing.  "  When  one  is  old  one  accepts  one's  limitations. 
When  I  was  twenty  I  never  thought  that  I  should  still  be  an  igno- 
rant and  discontented  woman  at  nearly  seventy." 

"It  is  because  you  are  so  young  still.  Lady  Winterbourne,  that 
you  feel  so,"  said  Aldous,  laughing  at  her,  as  one  does  at  an  old 
friend.  "  Why,  you  are  younger  than  any  of  us !  I  feel  all  brushed 
and  stirred  up  —  a  boy  at  school  again  —  after  I  have  been  to  see 
you !  " 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,  I'm  sure,"  said  Lady 
Winterbourne,  sigliing  again.  Then  she  looked  at  the  pair  beside 
her  —  at  the  alert  brightness  in  the  man's  strong  and  quiet  face  as 
he  sat  stooping  forward,  with  his  hands  upon  his  knees,  hardly 
able  to  keep  his  eyes  for  an  instant  from  the  dark  apparition 
beside  him  —  at  the  girl's  evident  shyness  and  pride. 

"  My  dear !  "  she  said,  turning  suddenly  to  Miss  Raebnrn,  "  have 
you  heard  what  a  monstrosity  Alice  has  produced  this  last  time  in 
the  way  of  a  baby  ?     It  was  born  with  four  teeth !  " 

Miss  Raeburn's  astonishment  fitted  the  provocation,  and  the  two 
old  friends  fell  into  a  gossip  on  the  subject  of  Lady  Winterbourne's 
numerous  family,  w^hich  was  clearly  meant  for  a  tele-a-tete. 

"Will  you  come  and  look  at  our  tapestry?"  said  Aldous  to  his 
neighbour,  after  a  few  nothings  had  passed  between  them  as  to 
the  weather  and  her  walk  from  ]MeHOT.  "  I  think  j'ou  would  ad- 
mire it,  and  I  am  afraid  my  grandfather  will  be  a  few  minutes  yet. 
He  hoped  to  get  home  earlier  than  this,  but  his  Board  meeting  %yas 
very  long  and  important,  and  has  kept  him  an  unconscionable 
time." 

]\Iarcella  rose,  and  they  moved  together  towards  the  south  end 
of  the  room  where  a  famous  piece  of  Italian  Renaissance  tapestry 
entirely  filled  the  wall  from  side  to  side. 

"  How  beautiful !  "  cried  the  girl,  her  eyes  filling  with  delight. 
"  What  a  delicious  thing  to  live  with  !  " 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  99 

And,  indeed,  it.  was  the  most  adorable  medley  of  forms,  tints, 
suggestions,  ol'  gods  and  goddesses,  nymphs  and  shepherds,  standing 
in  iiowery  grass  under  fruit-laden  trees  and  wreathed  about  with 
roses.  Both  colour  and  subject  were  of  fairyland.  The  golds  and 
browns  and  pinks  of  it,  the  greens  and  ivory  whites  had  been 
mellowed  and  pearled  and  warmed  by  age  into  a  most  glowing, 
delicate,  and  fanciful  beauty.     It  was  Italy  at  the  great  moment 

—  subtle,  rich,  exuberant. 
Aldous  enjoyed  her  pleasure. 

"  I  thought  ypii  would  like  it ;  I  hoped  you  would.  It  has  been 
my  special  delight  since  I  was  a  child,  when  my  mother  tii'st  routed 
it  out  of  a  garret.  I  am  not  sure  that  I  don't  in  my  heart  prefer 
it  to  any  of  the  pictures." 

"  The  flowers  1 "  said  Marcella,  absorbed  in  it  —  "  look  at  them 

—  the  irises,  the  cyclamens,  the  lilies!  It  reminds  one  of  the 
dreams  one  used  to  have  when  one  was  small  of  what  it  would  be 
like  to  have  flowers  -enough.  I  was  at  school,  you  know,  in  a  part 
of  England  where  one  seemed  always  cheated  out  of  them !  We 
walked  two  and  two  along  the  straight  roads,  and  I  found  one  here 
and  one  there  —  but  such  a  beggarly,  wretched  few,  for  all  one's 
trouble.  I  used  to  hate  the  hard  dry  soil,  and  console  myself  by 
imagining  countries  where  the  flowers  grew  like  this  —  yes,  just 
like  this,  in  a  gold  and  piidt  and  blue  mass,  so  that  one  might 
thrust  one's  hands  in  and  gather  and  gather  till  one  was  really  mt- 
isfied!  That  is  the  worst  of  being  at  school  when  you  are  poor! 
You  never  get  enough  of  anything.  One  day  it's  flowers  —  but  the 
next  day  it  is  pudding  —  and  the  next  frocks." 

Her  eye  was  sparkling,  her  tongue  loosened.  Not  only  was  it 
pleasant  to  feel  herself  beside  him,  enwrapped  in  such  an  atmos- 
phere of  admiration  and  deference,  but  the  artistic  sensitive  chord 
in  her  had  been  struck,  and  vibrated  happily. 

"Well,  only  wait  till  May,  and  the  cowslips  in  your  own  fields 
wiU  make  up  to  you  !  "  he  said,  smiling  at  her.  "  But  now,  I  have 
been  wondering  to  myself  in  my  room  upstairs  what  you  would 
like  to  see.  There  are  a  good  many  treasures  in  this  house,  and 
you  will  care  for  them,  because  you  are  an  artist.  But  you  shall 
not  be  bored  with  them  !  You  shall  see  what  and  as  much  as  you 
like.  You  had  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  talk  with  my  aunt, 
did  you  not?"  he  asked,  in  a  quite  different  tone. 

So  all  the  time  while  she  and  INIiss  Raeburn  had  been  making 
acquaintance,  he  had  known  that  she  was  in  the  house,  and  he  had 
kept  away  for  his  own  purposes  !  IMarcella  felt  a  colour  she  could 
not  restrain  leap  into  her  cheek. 

"Miss  Raeburn  was  very  kind,"  she  said,  with  a  return  of  shy- 
ness, which  passed  however  the  next  moment  by  reaction,  iuto  her 


100  MAECELLA  book  i 

usual  daring.  "  Yes,  she  was  very  kind !  —  but  all  the  same  she 
doesn't  like  me  —  I  don't  think  she  is  going  to  like  me  —  I  am  not 
her  sort." 

"  Have  you  been  talking  Socialism  to  her?"  he  asked  her,  smil- 
ing. 

"No,  not  yet  —  not  yet,''  she  said  emphatically.  "But  I  am 
dreadfully  uncertain  —  I  can't  always  hold  my  tongue — 1  am 
afraid  you  will  be  sorry  you  took  me  up." 

"  Are  you  so  aggressive  ?  But  Aunt  Neta  is  so  mild !  —  she 
wouldn't  hurt  a  fly.  She  mothers  every  one  in  the  house  and  out 
of  it.  The  only  people  she  is  hard  upon  are  the  little  servant  girls, 
who  will  wear  feathers  in  their  hats !  " 

"There!"  cried  Marcella,  indignantly.  "Why  shouldn't  they 
wear  feathers  in  their  hats?  It  is  their  form  of  beauty — their 
tapestry ! " 

"But  if  one  can't  have  both  feathers  and  boots?"  he  asked  her 
humbly,  a  twinkle  in  his  grey  eye.  "If  one  hasn't  boots,  one  may 
catch  a  cold  and  die  of  it  —  which  is,  after  all,  worse  than  going 
featherless." 

"But  why  con'<  they  have  feathers  and  boots?  It  is  because 
you  —  we  —  have  got  too  much.  You  have  the  tapestry  —  and  — 
and  the  pictures  "  —  she  turned  and  looked  round  the  room  —  "  and 
this  wonderful  house  —  and  the  j)ark.  Oh,  no  —  I  think  it  is  Miss 
Raeburn  has  too  many  feathers  !  " 

"  Perhaps  it  is,"  he  admitted,  in  a  different  tone,  his  look  chang- 
ing and  saddening  as  though  some  habitual  struggle  of  thought 
were  recalled  to  him.  "Y'ou  see  I  am  in  a  difficulty.  I  want  to 
show  you  our  feathers.  I  think  they  would  please  you  —  and  you 
make  me  ashamed  of  them." 

"  How  absurd  !  "  cried  Marcella,  "  when  I  told  you  how  I  liked 
the  school  children  bobbing  to  me  !  " 

They  laughed,  and  then  Aldous  looked  round  with  a  start  — 
"  Ah,  here  is  my  grandfather  !  " 

Then  he  stood  back,  watching  the  look  with  which  Lord  Maxwell, 
after  greeting  Lady  Winterbourne,  approached  Miss  Boyce.  He 
saw  the  old  man's  somewhat  formal  approach,  the  sudden  kindle 
in  the  blue  eyes  which  marked  the  first  effect  of  Marcella's  form 
and  presence,  the  bow,  the  stately  shake  of  the  hand.  The  lover 
hearing  his  own  heart  beat,  realised  that  his  beautifixl  lady  had 
so  far  done  w'ell. 

"  Y''ou  must  let  me  say  that  I  see  a  decided  likeness  in  you  to 
your  grandfather,"  said  Lord  Maxwell,  when  they  were  all  seated 
at  lunch,  Marcella  on  his  left  hand,  opposite  to  Lady  Winter- 
bourne.     "  He  was  one  of  my  dearest  friends." 

"I'm  afraid  I  don't  know  much   about   him,"  said   Marcella, 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  101 

rather  bluntly,  "  except  what  T  have  got  out  of  old  letters.  I 
never  saw  him  that  I  remember." 

Lord  Maxwell  left  the  subject,  of  course,  at  once,  but  showed 
a  great  wish  to  talk  to  her,  and  make  her  talk.  He  had  pleasant 
things  to  say  about  Mellor  and  its  past,  which  could  be  said  with- 
out offence ;  and  some  conversation  about  the  Boyce  monuments 
in  Mellor  church  led  to  a  discussion  of  the  part  played  by  the 
different  local  families  in  the  Civil  Wars,  in  which  it  seemed  to 
Aldous  that  his  grandfather  tried  in  various  shrewd  and  courteous 
ways  to  make  Marcella  feel  at  ease  with  herself  and  her  race, 
accepted,  as  it  were,  of  right  into  the  local  brotherhood,  and  so  to 
soothe  and  heal  those  bruised  feelings  he  could  not  but  divine. 

The  girl  carried  herself  a  little  loftily,  answering  with  an  inde- 
pendence and  freedom  beyond  her  age  and  born  of  her  London 
life.  She  was  not  in  the  least  abashed  or  shy.  Yet  it  was  clear 
that  Lord  Maxwell's  first  impressions  were  favourable.  Aldous 
caught  every  now  and  then  his  quick,  judging  look  sw'eeping  over 
her  and  instantly  withdrawn  —  comparing,  as  the  grandson  very 
well  knew%  every  point,  and  tone,  and  gesture  with  some  inner 
ideal  of  what  a  Raeburn's  wife  should  be.  How  dream-like  the 
whole  scene  was  to  Aldous,  yet  how  exquisitely  real !  The  room, 
with  its  carved  and  gilt  cedar-wood  panels,  its  Vandykes,  its  tall 
windows  opening  on  the  park,  the  autumn  sun  flooding  the  gold 
and  purple  fruit  on  the  table,  and  sparkling  on  the  glass  and 
silver,  the  figures  of  his  aunt  and  Lady  Winterbourne,  the  moving 
servants,  and  dominant  of  it  all,  interj^reting  it  all  for  him  anew, 
the  dark,  lithe  creature  beside  his  grandfather,  so  quick,  sensitive, 
extravagant,  so  much  a  woman,  yet,  to  his  lover's  sense,  so  utterly 
unlike  any  other  woman  he  had  ever  seen  —  every  detail  of  it  w^as 
charged  to  him  with  a  thousand  new  meanings,  now  oppressive, 
now  delightful. 

For  he  was  passing  out  of  the  first  stage  of  passion,  in  which  it 
is,  almost,  its  own  satisfaction,  so  new  and  enriching  is  it  to  the 
whole  nature,  into  the  second  stage  —  the  stage  of  anxiety,  incre- 
dulity. Marcella,  sitting  there  on  his  own  ground,  after  all  his 
planning,  seemed  to  him  not  nearer,  but  further  from  him.  She 
was  terribly  on  her  dignity !  Whei'e  was  all  that  girlish  abandon- 
ment gone  which  she  had  shown  him  on  that  walk,  beside  the  gate? 
There  had  been  a  touch  of  it,  a  divine  touch,  before  luncheon. 
How  could  he  get  her  to  himself  again? 

Meanwhile  the  conversation  passed  to  the  prevailing  local  topic 
—  the  badness  of  the  harvest,  the  low  prices  of  everything,  the 
consequent  depression  among  the  farmers,  and  stagnation  in  the 
villages. 

"  I  don't  know  what  is  to  be  done  for  the  people  this  winter," 


102  MAECELLA  book  i 

said  Lord  Maxwell,  "without  i^aiiperising  them,  I  mean.  To  give 
money  is  easy  enough.  Our  grandfathers  would  have  doled  out 
coal  and  blankets,  and  thought  no  more  of  it.  We  don't  get 
through  so  easily." 

"No,"  said  Lady  Winterbourne,  sighing.  "It  weighs  one  down. 
Last  winter  was  a  nightmare.  The  tales  one  heard,  and  the  faces 
one  saw!  — though  we  seemed  to  be  always  giving.  And  in  the 
middle  of  it  Edward  would  buy  me  a  new  set  of  sables-  I  begged 
him  not,  but  he  laughed  at  me." 

"Well,  my  dear,"  said  Miss  Raeburn,  cheerfully,  "if  nobody 
bought  sables,  there'd  be  other  poor  people  up  in  Russia,  isn't  it  ? 
—  or  Hudson's  Bay  ? —  badly  off.  One  has  to  think  of  that.  Oh, 
you  needn't  talk,  Aldous!  I  know  you  say  it's  a  fallacy.  /  call  it 
common  sense." 

She  got,  however,  only  a  slight  smile  from  Aldous,  who  had 
long  ago  left  his  great-aimt  to  work  out  her  own  economics.  And, 
anyway,  she  saw  that  he  was  wholly  absorbed  from  his  seat  beside 
Lady  Winterbourne  in  watching  Miss  Boyce. 

"It's  precisely  as  Lord  Maxwell  says,"  replied  Lady  Winter- 
bourne; "  that  kind  of  thing  used  to  satisfy  everybody.  And  our 
grandmothers  were  very  good  women.  I  don't  know  why  we,  who 
give  ourselves  so  much  more  trouble  than  they  did,  should  carry 
these  thorns  about  with  us,  while  they  went  free." 

She  drew  herself  up,  a  cloud  over  her  fine  eyes.  Miss  Raeburn, 
looking  round,  was  glad  to  see  the  servants  had  left  the  room. 

"  Miss  Boyce  thinks  we  are  all  in  a  very  bad  way,  I'm  sure.  I 
have  heard  tales  of  Miss  Boyce's  opinions !  "  said  Lord  Maxwell, 
smiling  at  her,  with  an  old  man's  indulgence,  as  though  provoking 
her  to  talk. 

Her  slim  fingers  were  nervously  crumbling  some  bread  beside 
her ;  her  head  was  drooped  a  little.  At  his  challenge  she  looked 
up  with  a  start.  She  was  perfectly  conscious  of  him,  as  both  the 
great  magnate  of  his  native  heath,  and  as  the  trained  man  of 
affairs  condescending  to  a  girl's  fancies.  But  she  had  made  up 
her  mind  not  to  be  afraid. 

"  What  tales  have  you  heard  ? '  she  asked  him. 

"  You  alarm  us,  you  knoAV,"  he  said  gallantly,  waiving  her  ques- 
tion.    "  We  can't  afford  a  prophetess  to  the  other  side,  just  now." 

Miss  Raeburn  drew  herself  up,  with  a  sharp  dry  look  at  Miss 
Boyce,  which  escaped  every  one  but  Lady  Winterbourne. 

"  Oh  !  I  am  not  a  Radical !  "  said  ^larcella,  half  scoi-nf  uUy. 
"We  Socialists  don't  fight  for  either  political  party  as  such.  AVe 
take  what  we  can  get  out  of  both." 

"  So  you  call  yourself  a  Socialist?     A  real  full-blown  one?" 

Lord  Maxwell's  pleasant  tone  masked  the  mood  of  a  man  who 


CHAP.   X  MAKCELLA  103 

after  a  morning  of  hard  work  thinks  himself  entitled  to  some 
amusement  at  luncheon. 

"Yes,  I  am  a  Socialist,"  she  said  slowly,  looking  at  him.  "  At 
least  I  ought  to  be  —  I  am  in  my  conscience." 

"  But  not  in  your  judgment  ?  "  he  said  laughing.  "  Isn't  that 
the  condition  of  most  of  us  ?  " 

"  No,  not  at  all !  "  she  exclaimed,  both  her  vanity  and  her  enthu- 
siasm roused  by  his  manner.  "  Both  my  judgment  and  my  con- 
science make  me  a  Socialist.  It's  only  one's  wretched  love  for 
one's  own  little  luxuries  and  precedences  —  the  worst  part  of  one 

—  that  makes  me  waver,  makes  me  a  traitor  !  The  people  I  worked 
with  in  London  w'ould  think  me  a  traitor  often,  I  know." 

"  And  you  really  think  that  the  world  ought  to  be  '  hatched  over 
again  and  hatched  different'?    That  it  ought  to  be,  if  it  could  be  V" 

"  I  think  that  things  are  intolerable  as  they  are,"  she  broke  out, 
after  a  pause.  "  The  London  poor  were  bad  enough  ;  the  country 
poor  seem  to  me  worse  !  How  can  any  one  believe  that  such  serf- 
dom and  poverty — such  mutilation  of  mind  and  body  —  were 
meant  to  go  on  for  ever  ! " 

Lord  Maxw^ell's  brows  lifted.  But  it  certainly  was  no  wonder 
that  Aldous  should  find  those  eyes  of  hers  superb ! 

"Can  you  really  imagine,  my  dear  young  lady,"  he  asked  her 
mildly,  "  that  if  all  property  were  divided  to-morrow  the  force  of 
natural  inequality  would  not  have  undone  all  the  work  the  day 
after,  and  given  us  back  our  poor  ?  " 

The  "  newspaper  cant  "  of  this  remark,  as  the  Cravens  would 
have  put  it,  brought  a  contemptuous  look  for  an  instant  into  the 
girl's  face.  She  began  to  talk  eagerly  and  cleverly,  showing  a 
very  fair  training  in  the  catch  words  of  the  school,  and  a  good 
memory — as  one  uncomfortable  person  at  the  table  soon  perceived 

—  for  some  of  the  leading  arguments  and  illustrations  of  a  book 
of  Venturist  Essays  which  had  lately  been  much  read  and  talked 
of  in  London. 

Then,  irritated  more  and  more  by  Lord  JMaxwell's  gentle  atten- 
tion, and  the  interjections  he  threw  in  from  time  to  time,  she 
plunged  into  history,  attacked  the  landowning  class,  spoke  of  the 
Statute  of  Labourers,  the  Law  of  Settlement,  the  New  Poor  Law, 
and  other  great  matters,  all  in  the  same  quick  flow  of  glancing, 
picturesque  speech,  and  all  with  the  same  utter  oblivion — so  it 
seemed  to  her  stiff  indignant  hostess  at  the  other  en'd  of  the  table 

—  of  the  manners  and  modesty  proper  to  a  young  girl  in  a  strange 
house,  and  that  young  girl  Richard  Boyce's  daughter ! 

Aldous  struck  in  now  and  then,  trying  to  soothe  her  by  support- 
ing her  to  a  certain  extent,  and  so  divert  the  conversation.  But 
Marcellawas  soon  too  excited  to  be  managed;  and  she  had  her  say; 


104  MARCELLA  book  i 

a  very  strong  say  often  as  far  as  language  went :  thex'e  could  be  no 
doubt  of  that. 

"  Ah,  well,"  said  Lord  Maxwell,  wincing  at  last  under  some  of 
her  phrases,  in  spite  of  his  courteous  savoir-faire,  "I  see  you  are 
of  the  same  oj^inion  as  a  good  man  whose  book  I  took  up  yester- 
day :  '  The  landlords  of  England  have  always  shown  a  mean  and 
malignant  passion  for  profiting  by  the  miseries  of  others '  ?  Well, 
Aldous,  my  boy,  we  are  judged,  you  and  I  —  no  help  for  it ! " 

The  man  whose  temper  and  rule  had  made  the  prosperity  of 
a  whole  country  side  for  nearly  forty  years,  looked  at  his  grand- 
son with  twinkling  eyes.  Miss  Raeburn  was  speechless.  Lady 
Winterbourne  was  absently  staring  at  Marcella,  a  spot  of  i"ed  on 
each  pale  cheek. 

Then  Marcella  suddenly  wavered,  looked  across  at  Aldous,  and 
broke  down. 

"  Of  course,  you  think  me  very  ridiculous,"  she  said,  with  a 
tremulous  change  of  tone.  "  I  suppose  I  am.  And  I  am  as  incon- 
sistent as  anybody  —  I  hate  myself  for  it.  Very  often  when  any- 
body talks  to  me  on  the  other  side,  I  am  almost  as  much  persuMed 
as  I  am  by  the  Socialists :  they  always  told  me  in  London  I  was 
the  prey  of  the  last  speaker.  But  it  can't  make  any  difference  to 
one's  feeling:  nothing  touches  that." 

She  turned  to  Lord  Maxwell,  half  appealing  — 

"  It  is  when  I  go  down  from  our  house  to  the  village ;  when  I  see 
the  places  the  people  live  in ;  when  one  is  comfortable  in  the  car- 
riage, and  one  passes  some  woman  in  the  rain,  ragged  and  dirty 
and  tired,  trudging  back  from  her  work ;  when  one  realises  that 
they  have  no  rights  when  they  come  to  be  old,  nothing  to  look  to 
but  charity,  for  which  ice,  who  have  everything,  expect  them  to  be 
grateful ;  and  when  I  know  that  every  one  of  them  has  done  more 
useful  work  in  a  year  of  their  life  than  I  shall  ever  do  in  the  whole 
of  mine,  then  I  feel  that  the  whole  state  of  things  is  somehoio 
wrong  and  topsy-turvy  and  ivicked."  Her  voice  rose  a  little,  every 
emphasis  grew  more  passionate.  "  And  if  I  don't  do  something  — 
the  little  such  a  person  as  I  can  —  to  alter  it  before  I  die,  I  might 
as  well  never  have  lived." 

Everybody  at  table  started.  Lord  Maxwell  looked  at  Miss  Rae- 
burn, his  mouth  twitching  over  the  humour  of  his  sister's  dismay. 
Well !  this  was  a  forcible  young  woman  :  was  Aldous  the  kind  of 
man  to  be  able  to  deal  conveniently  with  such  eyes,  such  emotions, 
such  a  personality  ? 

Suddenly  Lady  Winterbourne's  deep  voice  broke  in  : 

"•I  never  could  say  it  half  so  well  as  that.  Miss  Boyce ;  but  I  agree 
with  you.     I  may  say  that  I  have  agreed  with  you  all  my  life." 

The  girl  turned  to  her,  grateful  and  ipdvering. 


CHAi".  X  (  MAKCELLA  105 

"  At  the  same  time,"  said  Lady  AViuterbourne,  relapsing  with 
a  long  bi'eath  from  tragic  emphasis  into  a  fluttering  indecision 
equally  characteristic,  "  as  you  say,  one  is  inconsistent.  I  was  poor 
once,  before  Edward  came  to  the  title,  and  I  did  not  at  all  like  it 
—  not  at  all.  And  I  don't  wish  my  daughters  to  marry  poor  men  ; 
and  what  I  should  do  without  a  maid  or  a  carriage  when  I  wanted 
it,  I  cannot  imagine.  Edward  makes  the  most  of  these  things. 
He  tells  me  I  have  to  choose  between  things  as  they  are,  and  a 
graduated  income  tax  which  would  leave  nobody  —  not  even  the 
richest  — more  than  four  hundred  a  year." 

"  Just  enough  for  one  of  those  little  houses  on  your  station 
road,"  said  Lord  Maxwell,  laughing  at  her.  "  I  think  you  might 
still  have  a  maid." 

'"  There,  you  laugh,"  said  Lady  Wiuterbourne,  vehemently : 
"the  men  do.  But  I  tell  you  it  is  no  laughing  matter  to  feel  that 
your  heart  and  conscience  have  gone  over  to  the  enemy.  You  want 
to  feel  with  your  class,  and  you  can't.  Think  of  what  used  to  hap- 
pen in  the  old  days.  My  grandmother,  who  was  as  good  and  kind 
a  woman  as  ever  lived,  w^as  driving  home  through  our  village  one 
evening,  and  a  man  passed  her,  a  labourer  who  was  a  little  drunk, 
and  who  did  not  take  off  his  hat  to  her.  She  stopped,  made  her 
men  get  down  and  had  him  put  in  the  stocks  there  and  then  — 
the  old  stocks  were  still  standing  on  the  village  green.  Then  she 
drove  home  to  her  dinner,  and  said  her  prayers  no  doubt  that 
night  with  more  consciousness  than  usual  of  having  done  her 
duty.  But  if  the  power  of  the  stocks  still  remained  to  us,  my 
dear  friend"  —  and  she  laid  her  thin  old  woman's  hand,  flashing 
with  diamonds,  on  Lord  Maxwell's  arm  —  "we  could  no  longer  do 
it,  you  or  I.  We  have  lost  the  sense  of  riciht  in  our  place  and  posi- 
tion—  at  least  I  find  I  have.  In  the  old  days  if  there  w^as  social 
disturbance  the  upper  class  could  put  it  down  with  a  strong 
hand." 

"  So  they  would  still,"  said  Lord  Maxwell,  drily,  "  if  there  were 
violence.  Once  let  it  come  to  any  real  attack  on  property,  and 
you  will  see  where  all  these  Socialist  theories  will  be.  And  of 
course  it  wall  not  be  loe  —  not  the  landowaiers  or  the  capitalists  — 
who  will  put  it  down.  It  will  be  the  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
people  with  something  to  lose  —  a  few  pounds  in  a  joint-stock  mill, 
a  house  of  their  own  built  through  a  co-operative  store,  an  acre  or 
two  of  land  stocked  by  their  own  savings  —  it  is  they,  I  am  afraid, 
who  will  put  Miss  Boyce's  friends  down  so  far  as  they  represent 
any  real  attack  on  property — and  brutally,  too,  I  fear,  if  need  be." 

"I  dare  say,"  exclaimed  Marcella,  her  colour  rising  again.  "I 
never  can  see  how  we  Socialists  are  to  succeed.  But  how  can 
any  one  rejoice  in  it?     How  can  any  one  wish  that  the  present 


106  MAECELLA  book  i 

state  of  things  should  go  on  ?  Oh !  the  horrors  one  sees  in  Lon- 
don. And  down  here,  the  cottages,  and  the  starvation  wages,  and 
the  ridiculous  worship  of  game,  and  then,  of  course,  the  poach- 
ing—" 

Miss  Raeburn  pushed  back  her  chair  with  a  sharp  noise.  But 
her  brother  was  still  peeling  his  pear,  and  no  one  else  moved. 
Why  did  he  let  such  talk  go  on?     It  was  too  unseemly. 

Lord  Maxwell  only  laughed.  "  My  dear  young  lady,"  he  said, 
much  amused,  "  are  you  even  in  the  frame  of  mind  to  make  a  hero 
of  a  poacher?  Disillusion  lies  that  way  !  —  it  does  indeed.  Why 
—  Aldous!  —  I  have  been  hearing  such  tales  from  Westall  this 
morning.  I  stopped  at  Corbett's  farm  a  minute  or  two  on  the 
way  home,  and  met  ^V^estall  at  the  gate  coming  out.  He  says 
he  and  his  men  are  being  harried  to  death  round  about  Tudley 
End  by  a  gang  of  men  that  come,  he  thinks,  from  Oxford,  a  driv- 
ing gang  with  a  gig,  who  come  at  night  or  in  the  early  morning  — 
the  smartest  rascals  out,  impossible  to  catch.  But  he  says  he 
thinks  he  will  soon  have  his  hand  on  the  local  accomplice  —  a  Mel- 
lor  man — a  man  named  Hurd:  not  one  of  our  labourers,  I  think." 

"  Hurd  !  "  cried  Marcella,  in  dismay.  "  Oh  no,  it  carit  be  — 
impossible ! " 

Lord  Maxwell  looked  at  her  in  astonishment. 

"  Do  you  know  any  Hurds  ?  I  am  afraid  your  father  will  find 
that  Slellor  is  a  bad  place  for  poaching." 

"  If  it  is,  it  is  because  they  are  so  starved  and  miserable,"  said 
Marcella,  trying  hard  to  speak  coolly,  but  excited  almost  beyond 
bounds  by  the  conversation  and  all  that  it  implied.  "  And  the 
Hurds  —  I  don't  believe  it  a  bit !  But  if  it  were  true  —  oh !  they 
have  been  in  such  straits  —  they  were  out  of  work  most  of  last 
winter ;  they  are  out  of  work  now.  No  one  could  grudge  them.  I 
told  you  about  them,  didn't  I?"  she  said,  suddenly  glancing  at 
Aldous.  "I  was  going  to  ask  you  to-day,  if  you  could  help  them?" 
Her  prophetess  air  had  altogether  left  her.  She  felt  ready  to  cry ; 
and  nothing  could  have  been  more  womanish  than  her  tone. 

He  bent  across  to  her.  Miss  Raeburn,  invaded  by  a  new  and 
intolerable  sense  of  calamity,  could  ha,ve  beaten  him  for  what  she 
read  in  his  shining  eyes,  and  in  the  flush  on  his  usually  pale 
cheek. 

"Is  he  still  out  of  work?"  he  said.  "And  you  are  unhappy 
about  it?  But  I  am  sure  we  can  find  him  work:  I  am  just  now 
planning  improvements  at  the  north  end  of  the  park.  We  can 
take  him  on  ;  I  am  certain  of  it.  You  must  give  me  his  full  name 
and  address." 

"And  let  him  beware  of  Westall,"  said  Lord  Maxwell,  kindly. 
"  Give  him  a  hint.  Miss  Boyce,  and  nobody  will  rake  up  bygones. 


CHAP.  XI  MARCELLA  107 

There  is  nothing  I  dislike  so  much  as  rows  about  the  shooting.  All 
the  keepers  know  that." 

"  And  of  course,"  said  Miss  Raeburn,  coldly,  "  if  the  family  are 
in  real  distress  there  are  plenty  of  people  at  hand  to  assist  them. 
The  man  need  not  steal." 

"  Oh,  charity  !  "  cried  ^farcella,  her  lip  curling. 

"  A  worse  crime  than  poaching,  you  think,"  said  Lord  Maxwell, 
laughing.  "  Well,  these  are  big  subjects.  I  confess,  after  my 
morning  with  the  lunatics,  I  am  half  inclined,  like  Hoi-ace  Walpole, 
to  think  everything  serious  ridiculous.  At  any  rate  shall  we  see 
what  light  a  cup  of  coffee  throws  upon  it  ?  Agneta,  shall  we  ad- 
joui'n?" 

CHAPTER   XI 

Lord  Maxwell  closed  the  drawing-i'oom  door  behind  Aldous 
and  Marcella.  Aldous  had  j^roposed  to  take  their  guest  to  see 
the  picture  gallery,  which  was  on  the  first  floor,  and  had  found  her 
willing. 

The  old  man  came  back  to  the  two  other  women,  running  his 
hand  nervously  through  his  shock  of  w^iite  hair  —  a  gesture  which 
Miss  Raeburn  well  knew  to  show  some  disturbance  of  mind. 

"  I  should  like  to  have  your  opinion  of  that  young  lady,"  he 
said  deliberately,  taking  a  chair  immediately  in  front  of  them. 

"  I  like  her,"  said  Lady  Winterbourne,  instantly.  "  Of  coui-se 
she  is  crude  and  extravagant,  and  does  not  know  quite  what  she 
may  say.  But  all  that  will  improve.  I  like  her,  and  shall  make 
friends  with  her." 

Miss  Raebm-n  threw  up  her  hands  in  angry  amazement. 

"  Most  forward,  conceited,  and  ill-mannered,"  she  said  with 
energy.  "  I  am  certain  she  has  no  proper  principles,  and  as  to 
what  her  religious  views  may  be,  I  dread  to  think  of  them !  If 
tliat  is  a  specimen  of  the  girls  of  the  present  day —  " 

"My  dear,"  interrupted  Lord  Maxwell,  laying  a  hand  on  her 
knee,  "  Lady  Winterbourne  is  an  old  friend,  a  very  old  friend.  I 
think  we  may  be  frank  before  her,  and  I  don't  wish  you  to  say 
things  you  may  regret.  Aldous  has  made  up  his  mind  to  get  that 
girl  to  marry  him,  if  he  can." 

Lady  Winterbourne  was  silent,  having  in  fact  been  forewarned 
by  that  odd  little  interview  with  Aldous  in  her  own  drawing-room, 
when  he  had  suddenly  asked  her  to  call  on  Mrs.  Boyce.  But  she 
looked  at  Miss  Raeburn.  That  lady  took  up  her  knitting,  laid  it 
down  again,  resumed  it,  then  broke  out  — 

"  How  did  it  come  about  ?     Where  have  they  been  meeting  ?  " 

"  At  the  Hardens  mostly.     He  seems  to  have  been  struck  from 


108  MARCELLA  book  i 

the  beginning,  and  now  there  is  no  question  as  to  his  determina- 
tion. But  slie  may  not  have  liini;  he  professes  to  be  still  entirely 
in  the  dark." 

"  Oh !  "  cried  Miss  Raeburn,  with  a  scornful  shrug,  meant  to 
express  all  possible  incredulity.  Then  she  began  to  knit  fast  and 
furiously,  and  presently  said  in  great  agitation,  — 

"  What  can  he  be  thinking  of  ?  She  is  very  handsome,  of  course, 
but — "  then  her  words  failed  her.  "When  Aldous  remembers 
his  mother,  how  can  he? — undisci]jlined !  self-willed!  Why,  she 
laid  down  the  law  to  you,  Henry,  as  though  you  had  nothing  to  do 
but  to  take  your  opinions  from  a  chit  of  a  girl  like  her.  Oh  !  no, 
no;  I  really  can't;  you  must  give  me  time.  And  her  father  — 
the  disgrace  and  tronble  of  it !  I  tell  you,  Henry,  it  will  bring 
misfortune !  " 

Lord  Maxwell  was  mucli  troubled.  Certainly  he  should  have 
talked  to  Agneta  beforehand.  But  the  fact  was  he  had  his  cow- 
ardice, like  other  men,  and  he  had  been  trusting  to  the  girl  herself, 
to  this  beauty  he  heard  so  much  of,  to  soften  the  first  shock  of  the 
matter  to  the  present  mistress  of  the  Court. 

"  We  will  hope  not,  Agneta,"  he  said  gravely,  "  We  will  hoi^e 
not.  But  you  must  remember  Aldous  is  no  boy.  I  cannot  coerce 
him.  I  see  the  difficulties,  and  I  have  put  them  before  him.  But 
I  am  more  favourably  struck  with  the  girl  than  you  are.  And 
anyway,  if  it  comes  about,  we  must  make  the  best  of  it." 

Miss  Raeburn  made  no  answer,  but  pretended  to  set  her  heel, 
her  needles  shaking.  Lady  Winterbourne  was  very  sorry  for  her 
two  old  friends. 

"  Wait  a  little,"  she  said,  laying  her  hand  lightly  on  Miss  Rae- 
burn's.  "  No  doubt  with  her  opinions  she  felt  specially  drawn  to 
assert  herself  to-day.  One  can  imagine  it  very  well  of  a  girl,  and 
a  generous  girl  in  her  position.  You  will  see  other  sides  of  her,  I 
am  sure  you  will.  And  you  would  never  —  you  could  never  — 
make  a  breach  with  Aldous." 

"  We  must  all  remember,"  said  Lord  Maxwell,  getting  uji  and 
beginning  to  walk  tip  and  down  beside  them,  "that  Aldous  is  in 
no  way  dependent  upon  me.  He  has  his  own  resources.  He  could 
leave  us  to-morrow.  Dependent  on  me !  It  is  the  other  way,  I 
think,  Agneta  —  don't  you?  " 

He  stopped  and  looked  at  her,  and  she  returned  his  look  in  spite 
of  herself.  A  tear  dropped  on  her  stockmg  wdiich  she  hastily 
brushed  away. 

"  Come,  now,"  said  Lord  Maxwell,  seating  himself;  "let  us  talk 
it  over  rationally.     Don't  go.  Lady  "Winterbourne." 

"Why,  they  may  be  settling  it  at  this  moment,"  cried  Miss  Rae- 
burn, half-choked,  and  feeling  as  though  "the  skies  were  impious 
not  to  fall." 


CHAT.  XI  MARCELLA  109 

"  No,  no !  "  he  said  smiling.  "  Not  yet,  I  think.  But  let  us  pre- 
pare ourselves." 

Meanwhile  the  cause  of  all  this  agitation  was  sitting  languidly 
in  a  great  Louis  Quinze  chair  in  the  picture  gallery  upstairs,  with 
Aldous  beside  her.  She  had  taken  off  her  big  hat  as  though  it 
oppressed  her,  and  her  black  head  lay  against  a  corner  of  the  chair 
in  fine  contrast  to  its  mellowed  golds  and  crimsons.  Opposite  to 
her  were  two  famous  Holbein  portraits,  at  which  she  looked  from 
time  to  time  as  though  attracted  to  them  in  spite  of  herself,  by 
some  trained  sense  which  could  not  be  silenced.  But  she  was  not 
communicative,  and  Aldous  was  anxious. 

"  Do  you  think  I  was  rude  to  your  grandfather?"  she  asked  him 
at  last  abruptly,  cutting  dead  short  some  information  she  had  stifHy 
asked  him  for  just  before,  as  to  the  date  of  the  gallery  and  its  col- 
lection. 

"  Rude  !  "  he  said  startled.  "  Not  at  all.  Not  in  the  least.  Do 
you  suppose  we  are  made  of  such  brittle  stuff,  we  poor  landowners, 
that  we  can't  stand  an  argument  now  and  then?" 

"  Your  aunt  thought  I  was  rude,"  she  said  unheeding.  "  I  think 
I  was.  But  a  house  like  this  excites  me."  And  with  a  little  reck- 
less gesture  she  turned  her  head  over  her  shoulder  and  looked  down 
the  gallery.  A  Velasquez  was  beside  her ;  a  great  Titian  over  the 
way;  a  priceless  Rembrandt  beside  it.  On  her  right  hand  stood  a 
chair  of  carved  steel,  presented  by  a  German  town  to  a  German 
emperor,  which  had  not  its  equal  in  Europe ;  the  brocade  draping 
the  deep  windows  in  front  of  her  had  been  specially  made  to  grace 
a  state  visit  to  the  house  of  Charles  11. 

"  At  Mellor,"  she  went  on,  "  we  are  old  and  tumble-down.  The 
rain  comes  in ;  there  are  no  shutters  to  the  big  hall,  and  we  can't 
afford  to  put  them  —  we 'can't  afford  even  to  have  the  pictures 
cleaned.  I  can  pity  the  house  and  nurse  it,  as  I  do  the  village. 
But  here  —  " 

And  looking  about  her,  she  gave  a  significant  shrug. 

"What  —  our  feathers  again!"  he  said  laughing.  "But  con- 
sider. Even  you  allow  that  Socialism  cannot  begin  to-morrow. 
There  must  be  a  transition  time,  and  clearly  till  the  State  is  ready 
to  take  over  the  historical  houses  and  their  contents,  the  present 
nominal  owners  of  them  are  bound,  if  they  can,  to  take  care  of 
them.     Otherwise  the  State  will  be  some  day  defrauded." 

She  could  not  be  insensible  to  the  charm  of  his  manner  towards 
her.  There  was  in  it,  no  doubt,  the  natural  force  and  weight  of 
the  man  older  and  better  informed  than  his  -companion,  and 
amused  every  now  and  then  by  her  extravagance.  But  even  her 
irritable  pride  could  not  take  offence.     For  the  intellectual  dis- 


110  MARCELLA  book  i 

sent  she  felt  at  bottom  was  tempered  by  a  moi'al  sympathy  of 
which  the  gentleness  and  warmth  touched  and  moved  her  in  spite 
of  herself.  And  now  that  they  were  alone  he  could  express  him- 
self. So  long  as  they  had  been  in  comj^any  he  had  seemed  to  her, 
as  often  before,  shy,  hesitating,  and  ineffective.  But  with  the  dis- 
appearance of  spectators,  who  represented  to  him,  no  doubt,  the 
harassing  claim  of  the  critical  judgment,  all  was  freer,  more 
assured,  more  natural. 

She  leant  her  chin  on  her  hand,  considering  his  plea. 

"  Supposing  you  live  long  enough  to  see  the  State  take  it,  shall  you 
be  able  to  reconcile  yourself  to  it?  Or  shaU  you  feel  it  a  wrong, 
and  go  out  a  rebel  ? " 

A  delightful  smile  was  beginning  to  dance  in  the  dark  eyes. 
She  was  recovering  the  tension  of  her  talk  with  Lord  Maxwell. 

"All  mi,ist  depend,  you  see,  on  the  conditions  —  on  how  you  and 
your  friends  are  going  to  manage  the  transition.  You  may  per- 
suade me  —  conceivably  —  or  you  may  eject  me  with  violence." 

"  Oh,  no  ! "  she  interposed  quickly.  "  There  will  be  no  violence. 
Only  we  shall  gradually  reduce  your  wages.  Of  course,  we  can't 
do  without  leaders  —  we  don't  want  to  do  away  with  the  captains 
of  any  industry,  agricultural  or  manufacturing.  Only  we  think 
you  overpaid.     You  must  be  content  with  less." 

"  Don't  linger  out  the  process,"  he  said  laughing,  "  otherwise  it 
will  be  painful.  The  people  who  are  condemned  to  live  in  these 
houses  before  the  Commune  takes  to  them,  while  your  graduated 
land  and  income  taxes  are  slowly  stai'ving  them  out,  will  have 
a  bad  time  of  it." 

"  Well,  it  will  be  your  first  bad  time !  Think  of  the  labourer 
now,  with  five  children,  of  school  age,  on  twelve  shillings  a  week  — 
think  of  the  sweated  women  in  London." 

"  Ah,  think  of  them,"  he  said  in  a  different  tone. 

There  was  a  pause  of  silence. 

"  No ! "  said  Marcella,  springing  up.  "  Don't  let's  think  of  them. 
I  get  to  believe  the  whole  thing  a  pose  in  myself  and  other  people. 
Let's  go  back  to  the  pictures.  Do  you  think  Titian  '  sweated ' 
his  drapery  men  —  paid  them  starvation  rates,  and  grew  rich  on 
their  labour  ?  Very  likely.  All  the  same,  that  blue  woman  "  — 
she  pointed  to  a  bending  Magdalen  —  "  will  be  a  joy  to  all  time." 

They  wandered  through  the  gallery,  and  she  was  now  all  curios- 
ity, pleasure,  and  intelligent  interest,  as  though  she  had  thrown 
off  an  oppression.  Then  they  emerged  into  the  upper  corridor 
answering  to  the  corridor  of  the  antiques  below.  This  also  was 
hung  with  pictm-es,  principally  family  portraits  of  the  second  order, 
dating  back  to  the  Tudors  —  a  fine  series  of  berobed  and  bejewelled 
personages,  wherein  clothes  pi-edominated  and  character  was  un- 
important. 


CHAP.  XI  MARCELLA  111 

Marcella's  eye  was  glancing  along  the  brilliant  colour  of  the 
wall,  taking  rapid  note  of  jewelled  necks  surmounting  stiif  em- 
broidex-ed  dresses,  of  the  whiteness  of  lace  ruffs,  or  the  love-locks 
and  gleaming  satin  of  the  Caroline  beauties,  when  it  suddenly 
occurred  to  her,  — 

"I  shall  be  their  successor.  This  is  already  potentially  mine. 
In  a  few  months,  if  I  please,  I  shall  be  walking  this  house  as  mis- 
tress —  its  future  mistress,  at  any  rate  !  " 

She  was  conscious  of  a  quickening  in  the  blood,  a  momentary 
blurring  of  the  vision.  A  whirlwind  of  fancies  swept  across  her. 
She  thought  of  herself  as  the  young  peeress  —  Lord  Maxwell  after 
all  was  over  seventy — her  own  white  neck  blazing  with  diamonds, 
the  historic  jewels  of  a  great  family  —  her  will  making  law  in  this 
splendid  house  —  in  the  great  domain  surrounding  it.  What 
power  —  what  a  position — what  a  romance!  She,  the  out-at- 
elbows  Marcella,  the  Socialist,  the  friend  of  the  people.  What 
new  lines  of  social  action  and  endeavour  she  might  strike  out ! 
Miss  Raeburn  should  not  stop  her.  She  caressed  the  thought  of 
the  scandals  in  store  for  that  lady.  Only  it  annoyed  her  that  her 
dream  of  large  things  should  be  constantly  crossed  by  this  foolish 
delight,  making  her  feet  dance  —  in  this  mere  prospect  of  satin 
gowns  and  fine  jewels  —  of  young  and  feted  beauty  holding  its 
brilliant  court.  If  she  made  such  a  marriage,  it  should  be,  it  must 
be,  on  public  grounds.  Her  friends  must  have  no  right  to  blame 
her. 

Then  she  stole  a  glance  at  the  tall,  quiet  gentleman  beside  her. 
A  man  to  be  proud  of  from  the  beginning,  and  surely  to  be  very 
fond  of  in  time.  "  He  would  always  be  my  friend,"  she  thought. 
"  I  could  lead  him.  He  is  very  clever,  one  can  see,  and  knows  a 
great  deal.  But  he  admires  what  I  like.  His  position  hampers 
him  —  but  I  could  help  him  to  get  beyond  it.  We  might  show 
the  way  to  many  1 " 

"  Will  you  come  and  see  this  room  here  ?  "  he  said,  stopping 
suddenly,  yet  with  a  'certain  hesitation  in  the  voice.  "  It  is  my 
own  sitting-room.  There  are  one  or  two  portraits  I  should  like  to 
show  you  if  you  would  let  me." 

She  followed  him  with  a  rosy  cheek,  and  they  were  presently 
standing  in  front  of  the  portrait  of  his  mother.  He  spoke  of  his 
recollections  of  his  parents,  quietly  and  simply,  yet  she  felt 
through  every  nerve  that  he  was  not  the  man  to  speak  of  such 
things  to  anybody  in  whom  he  did  not  feel  a  very  strong  and 
peculiar  interest.  As  he  was  talking  a  rush  of  liking  towards  him 
came  across  her.  How  good  he  was  —  how  affectionate  beneath 
his  reserve —  a  woman  might  securely  trust  him  with  her  future. 

So  with  every  minute  she  grew  softer,  her  eye  gentler,  and  with 


112  MAKCELLA  book  i 

each  step  and  word  he  seemed  to  himself  to  be  carried  deeper  into 
the  current  of  joy.  Intoxication  was  mounting  witliin  him,  as  her 
slim,  warm  youth  moved  and  breathed  beside  him ;  and  it  was 
natural  that  he  should  read  her  changing  behaviour  for  something 
other  than  it  was.  A  man  of  his  type  asks  for  no  advance  from 
the  woman ;  the  woman  he  loves  does  not  make  them ;  but  at  the 
same  time  he  has  a  natural  self-esteem,  and  believes  readily  in  his 
power  to  win  the  return  he  is  certain  he  will  deserve. 

"And  this?"  she  said,  moving  restlessly  towards  his  table,  and 
taking  up  the  photograph  of  Edward  Hallin. 

"  Ah !  that  is  the  greatest  friend  I  have  in  the  world.  Eut  I  am 
sure  you  know  the  name.     Mr.  Hallin — Edward  Hallin." 

She  paused  bewildered. 

"What!  the  Mr.  Hallin  —  that  was  Edward  Hallin  —  who  settled 
the  Nottingham  strike  last  month  —  who  lectures  so  much  in  the 
East  End,  and  in  the  north?" 

"  The  same.  We  are  old  college  friends.  I  owe  him  much,  and 
in  all  his  excitements  he  does  not  forget  old  friends.  There,  you 
see  —  "  and  he  opened  a  blotting  book  and  pointed  smiling  to  some 
closely  written  sheets  lying  within  it  —  "is  my  last  letter  to  him. 
I  often  write  two  of  those  in  the  week,  and  he  to  me.  We  don't 
agree  on.  a  number  of  things,  but  that  doesn't  matter." 

"  What  can  you  find  to  write  about  ?  "  she  said  wondering.  "  I 
thought  nobody  wrote  letters  nowadays,  only  notes.  Is  it  books, 
or  people?" 

"Both,  when  it  pleases  us!"  How  soon,  oh!  ye  favouring  gods, 
might  he  reveal  to  her  the  part  she  herself  played  in  those  closely 
covered  sheets?  "But  he  writes  to  me  on  social  matters  chiefly. 
His  whole  heart,  as  you  probably  know,  is  in  certain  experi- 
ments and  reforms  in  whicli  he  sometimes  asks  me  to  help 
him."  , 

Marcella  opened  her  eyes.  These  were  new  lights.  She  began 
to  recall  all  that  she  had  heard  of  young  Hallin's  position  in  the. 
Labour  movement;  his  personal  magnetism  and  prestige;  his 
power  as  a  speaker.  Her  Socialist  friends,  she  remembered, 
thought  him  in  the  way  —  a  force,  but  a  dangerous  one.  He  was 
for  the  follies  of  compromise  —  could  not  be  got  to  disavow  the 
principle  of  private  property,  while  ready  to  go  great  lengths  in 
certain  directions  towards  collective  action  and  corporate  control. 
The  "  stalwarts "  of  her  sect  would  have  none  of  him  as  a  leader, 
while  admitting  his  charm  as  a  human  being  — a  charm  she  remem- 
bered to  have  heard  discussed  with  some  anxiety  among  her 
Venturist  friends.  But  for  ordinary  people  he  went  far  enough. 
Her  father,  she  remembered,  had  dubbed  him  an  "  Anarchist"  in 
connection  with  the  terms  he  had  been  able  to  secure  for  the  Not- 


CHAP.  XI  MARCELLA  113 

tiughaiu  strikers,  as  reported  in  the  newspapers.  It  astouishcd 
her  to  come  across  the  man  again  as  Mr,  llaeburn's  friend. 

They  talked  abont  Ilalliii  a  little,  and  about  Aldous's  Cam- 
bridge acquaintance  with  him.  Then  Marcella,  still  nervous, 
went  to  look  at  the  bookshelves,  and  found  herself  in  front  of 
that  working  collection  of  books  on  economics  which  Aldous  kept 
in  his  own  room  under  his  hand,  by  way  of  guide  to  the  very  fine 
special  collection  he  was  gradually  making  in  the  library  down- 
stairs. 

Here  again  were  surjarises  for  her.  Aldous  had  never  made  the 
smallest  claim  to  special  knowledge  on  all  those  subjects  she  had 
so  often  insisted  on  making  him  discuss.  He  had  been  always 
tentative  and  diffident,  deferential  even  so  far  as  her  own  opinions 
were  concerned.  And  here  already  was  the  library  of  a  student. 
All  the  books  she  had  ever  read  or  heard  discussed  were  here  — 
and  as  few  among  many.  The  condition  of  them,  moreover,  the 
signs  of  close  and  careful  reading  she  noticed  in  tliem,  as  she  took 
them  out,  abashed  her :  she  had  never  learnt  to  read  in  this  way. 
It  was  her  first  contact  with  an  exact  and  arduous  culture.  She 
thought  of  how  she  had  instructed  Lord  INIaxwell  at  luncheon. 
No  doubt  he  shared  his  grandson's  interests.  Her  cheek  burned 
anew ;  this  time  because  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  had  been 
ridiculous. 

"  I  don't  know  why  you  never  told  me  you  took  a  particular 
interest  in  these  subjects,"  she  said  suddenly,  turning  round  upon 
him  resentfully  —  she  had  just  laid  down,  of  all  things,  a  volume 
of  Venturist  essays.  "  You  must  have  thought  I  talked  a  great 
deal  of  nonsense  at  luncheon." 

"Why!  —  I  have  always  been  delighted  to  find  you  cared  for 
such  things  and  took  an  interest  in  them.  How  few  women 
do !  "  he  said  quite  simply,  opening  his  eyes.  "  Do  you  know  these 
three  pamphlets?     They  were  privately  printed,  and  are  very  rare." 

He  took  out  a  book  and  showed  it  to  her  as  one  does  to  a  com- 
rade and  equal  —  as  he  might  have  done  to  Edward  Hallin.  But 
something  was  jarred  in  her  —  conscience  or  self-esteem  —  and  she 
could  not  recover  her  sense  of  heroineship.  She  answered  absently, 
and  when  he  returned  the  book  to  the  shelf  she  said  that  it  was 
time  for  her  to  go,  and  would  he  kindly  ask  for  her  maid,  who 
was  to  walk  with  her  ? 

"I  will  ring  for  her  directly,"  he  said.  "But  you  will  let  me 
take  you  home?"  Then  he  added  hurriedly,  "I  have  some  busi- 
ness this  afternoon  with  a  man  who  lives  in  yom*  direction." 

She  assented  a  little  stiffly  —  but  with  an  inwjird  thrill.  His 
words  and  manner  seemed  suddenly  to  make  the  situation  unmis- 
takable.    Among  the  books  it  had  been  for  the  moment  obscured. 


114  MARCELLA  ^         ^       book  i 

He  rang  for  his  own  servant,  and  gave  directions  about  the  maid. 
Then  they  went  downstairs  tliat  Marcella  might  say  good-bye. 

]\Iiss  Raeburn  bade  her  guest  farewell,  with  a  dignity  which  her 
small  person  could  sometimes  assume,  not  unbecomingly.  Lady 
Winterbourne  held  the  gii'l's  hand  a  little,  looked  her  out  of  coun- 
tenance, and  insisted  on  her  promising  again  to  come  to  Winter- 
bourne  Park  the  following  Tuesday.  Then  Lord  JMaxwell,  with 
old-fashioned  politeness,  made  Marcella  take  his  arm  through  the 
hall. 

"You  must  come  and  see  us  again,"  he  said  smiling;  "though 
we  are  such  belated  old  Tories,  we  are  not  so  bad  as  we  sound." 

And  under  cover  of  his  mild  banter  he  fixed  a  penetrating  atten- 
tive look  upon  her.  Flushed  and  embarrassed  !  Had  it  indeed 
been  done  already?  or  would  Aldous  settle  it  on  this  walk?  To 
judge  from  his  manner  and  hers,  the  thing  was  going  with  rapid- 
ity.    Well,  well,  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  hope  for  the  best. 

On  their  wa)'  through  the  hall  she  stopped  him,  her  hand  still 
in  his  arm.  Aldous  was  in  front,  at  the  door,  looking  for  a  light 
shawl  she  had  brought  with  her. 

"I  should  like  to  thank  you,"  she  said  shyly,  "about  the  Hurds. 
It  will  be  very  kind  of  you  and  Mr.  Raeburn  to  find  them  work." 

Lord  Maxwell  was  pleased ;  and  with  the  usual  unfair  advantage 
of  beauty  her  eyes  and  curving  lips  gave  her  little  advance  a  charm 
infinitely  beyond  what  any  plainer  woman  could  have  commanded. 

"  Oh,  don't  thank  me  !  "  he  said  cheerily.  "  Thank  Aldous.  He 
does  all  that  kind  of  thing.  And  if  in  your  good  works  you  want 
any  help  we  can  give,  ask  it,  my  dear  young  lady.  j\Iy  old  com- 
rade's granddaughter  will  always  find  friends  in  this  house." 

Lord  Maxwell  would  have  been  very  much  astonished  to  hear 
himself  making  this  sjjeech  six  weeks  before.  As  it  was,  he 
handed  her  over  gallantly  to  Aldous,  and  stood  on  the  steps  look- 
ing after  them  in  a  stir  of  mind  not  unnoted  by  the  confidential 
butler  who  held  the  door  open  behind  him.  W^ould  Aldous  insist 
on  carrying  his  wife  off  to  the  dowser  house  on  the  other  side  of 
the  estate  ?  or  would  they  be  content  to  stay  in  the  old  place  with 
the  old  people  ?  And  if  so,  how  were  that  girl  and  his  sister  to 
get  on?  As  for  himself,  he  w^as  of  a  naturally  optimist  temper, 
and  ever  since  the  night  of  his  first  interview  with  Aldous  on  the 
subject,  he  had  been  more  and  more  inclining  to  take  a  cheerful 
view.  He  liked  to  see  a  young  creature  of  such  evident  chara<;ter 
and  cleverness  holding  opinions  and  lines  of  her  own.  It  was 
infinitely  better  than  mere  nonentity.  Of  course,  she  was  now 
extravagant  and  foolish,  ]3erhaps  vain  too.  But  that  would  mend 
with  time  —  mend,  above  all,  with  her  position  as  Aldous's  wife. 
Aldous  was  a  strong  man  —  how  strong,  Lord  Maxwell  suspected 


CHAP.  XI  MAKCELLA  115 

that  this  impetuous  young  lady  hardly  knew.  No,  he  thought  the 
family  miglit  be  trusted  to  cope  with  her  when  once  they  got  her 
among  them.  And  she  would  certainly  be  an  ornament  to  the  old 
house. 

Her  father  of  course  was,  and  would  be,  the  real  difficulty,  and 
the  blight  which  had  descended  on  the  once  honoured  name.  But 
a  man  so  conscious  of  many  kinds  of  power  as  Lord  Maxwell  could 
not  feel  much  doubt  as  to  his  own  and  his  grandson's  competence 
to  keep  so  poor  a  specimen  of  humanity  as  Richard  Boyce  in  his 
place.  How  wretchedly  ill,  how  feeble,  both  in  body  and  soul,  the 
fellow  had  looked  when  he  and  Winterbourne  met  him  ! 

The  white-haired  owner  of  the  Court  walked  back  slowly  to  his 
library,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  his  head  bent  in  cogitation.  Im- 
possible to  settle  to  the  various  important  political  letters  lying  on 
his  table,  and  bearing  all  of  them  on  that  approaching  crisis  in  the 
spring  which  must  put  Lord  Maxwell  and  his  friends  in  power. 
He  was  over  seventy,  but  his  old  blood  quickened  within  him  as 
he  thought  of  those  two  on  this  golden  afternoon,  among  the  beech 
woods.  How  late  Aldous  had  left  all  these  experiences  !  His 
grandfather,  by  twenty,  could  have  shown  him  the  way. 

Meanwhile  the  two  in  question  were  walking  along  the  edge  of 
the  hill  rampart  overlooking  the  plain,  with  the  road  on  one  side 
of  them,  and  the  falling  beech  woods  on  the  other.  They  were  on 
a  woodland  path,  just  within  the  trees,  sheltered,  and  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  alone.  The  maid,  with  leisurely  discretion,  was  fol- 
lowing far  behind  them  on  the  high  road. 

Marcella,  who  felt  at  moments  as  though  she  could  hardly  breathe, 
by  reason  of  a  certain  tumult  of  nerve,  was  yet  apparently  bent  on 
maintaining  a  conversation  without  breaks.  As  they  diverged  from 
the  road  into  the  wood-path,  she  plunged  into  the  subject  of  her 
companion's  election  prospects.  How  many  meetings  did  he  find 
that  he  must  hold  in  tlie  month  ?  What  places  did  he  regard  as  his 
principal  strongholds  ?  She  was  told  that  certain  villages,  which 
she  named,  were  certain  to  go  Radical,  whatever  might  be  the  Tory 
promises.  As  to  a  well-known  Conservative  League,  which  was 
very  strong  in  the  country,  and  to  which  all  the  great  ladies,  includ- 
ing Lady  Winterbourne,  belonged,  was  he  actually  going  to  demean 
himself  by  accepting  its  support  ?  How  was  it  possible  to  defend 
the  bribery,  buns,  and  beer  by  which  it  won  its  corrupting  way? 

Altogether,  a  quick  fire  of  questions,  remarks,  and  sallies,  which 
Aldous  met  and  parried  as  best  he  might,  comforting  himself  all 
the  time  by  thought  of  those  deeper  and  lonelier  parts  of  the  wood 
which  lay  before  them.  At  last  she  dropped  out,  half  laughing, 
half  defiant,  words  which  arrested  him,  — 


116  MARCELLA  book  i 

"  Well,  I  shall  know  what  the  other  side  think  of  their  prospects 
very  soon.     Mr.  Wharton  is  coming  to  lunch  with  us  to-morrow." 

"Harry  Wharton!"  he  said,  astonished.  "  But  Mr.  Boyce  is  not 
sujiporting  him.     Your  father,  I  think,  is  Conservative?" 

One  of  Dick  Boj'ce's  first  acts  as  owner  of  Mellor,  when  social 
rehabilitation  had  still  looked  probable  to  him,  had  been  to  send  a 
contribution  to  the  funds  of  the  League  aforesaid,  so  that  Aldous 
had  public  and  conspicuous  grounds  for  his  remark. 

"  Need  one  measure  everything  by  politics  ? "  she  asked  him  a 
little  disdainfully.     "  Mayn't  one  even  feed  a  Radical?" 

He  winced  visibly  a  moment,  touched  in  his  philosopher's  pride. 

"You  remind  me,"  he  said,  laughing  and  reddening — "and 
justly — that  an  election  perverts  all  one's  standards  and  besmirches 
all  one's  morals.     Then  I  suppose  Mr.  Wharton  is  an  old  friend  ?  " 

"  Papa  never  saw  him  before  last  week,"  she  said  carelessly. 
"  Now  he  talks  of  asking  him  to  stay  some  time,  and  says  that, 
although  he  won't  vote  for  him,  he  hopes  that  he  will  make  a  good 
fight.'''' 

Raeburn's  biiow  contracted  in  a  puzzled  frown. 

"  He  will  make  an  excellent  fight,"  he  said  rather  shortly. 
"  Dodgson  hardly  hopes  to  get  in.  Harry  Wharton  is  a  most 
taking  speaker,  a  very  clever  fellow,  and  sticks  at  nothing  in  the 
way  of  promises.  Ah,  you  will  find  him  interesting,  Miss  Boyce ! 
He  has  a  co-operative  farm  on  his  Lincolnshire  property.  Last 
year  he  started  a  Labour  paper  —  which  I  believe  you  read.  I 
have  heard  you  quote  it.     He  believes  in  all  that  you  hope  for 

—  great    increase    in    local    government    and    communal    control 

—  the  land  for  the  people  —  graduated  income-tax  —  the  extinc- 
tion of  landlord  and  capitalist  as  soon  as  may  be  —  e  tutli  quanti. 
He  talks  with  great  eloquence  and  ability.  In  our  villages  I  find 
he  is  making  way  every  week.  The  people  think  his  manners 
perfect.  '  'Ee  'as  a  way  wi'  un,'  said  an  old  labourer  to  me  last 
week.  'Tf  'ee  wor  to  coe  the  wild  birds,  I  do  believe,  Muster 
Raeburn,  they'd  coom  to  un  ! ' " 

"  Yet  you  dislike  him !  "  said  Marcella,  a  daring  smile  dancing  on 
the  dark  face  she  turned  to  him.  "  One  can  hear  it  in  every  word 
you  say." 

He  hesitated,  trying,  even  at  the  moment  that  an  impulse  of 
jealous  alarm  which  astonished  himself  had  taken  possession  of 
him,  to  find  the  moderate  and  measured  phrase. 

"I  have  known  him  from  a  boy,"  he  said.  " He  is  a  connection 
of  the  Levens,  and  used  to  be  always  there  in  old  days.  He  is 
very  brilliant  and  veiy  gifted  —  " 

"  Your  '  but  must  be  very  bad,"  she  threw  in,  "  it  Ls  so  long  in 
coming." 


ciiAP.  XI  MARCELLA  117 

"  Then  I  -will  say,  "whatever  opening  it  gives  you,"  he  replied 
■with  spirit,  "  tliat  I  admire  him  without  respecting  him." 

"  Wlio  ever  thought  otlierwise  of  a  clever  opponent  ?  "  she  cried. 
"  It  is  the  stock  formula." 

The  remark  stung,  all  the  more  because  Aldous  was  perfectly 
conscious  that  there  was  much  truth  in  her  implied  charge  of 
prejudice.  He  had  never  been  very  capable  of  seeing  this  partic- 
ular man  in  the  dry  light  of  reason,  and  was  certainly  less  so  than 
before,  since  it  had  been  revealed  to  him  that  Wharton  and  Mr. 
Boyce's  daughter  were  to  be  brought,  before  long,  into  close 
neighbourhood. 

"I  am  sorry  that  I  seem  to  you  such  a  Pharisee,"  he  said, 
turning  upon  her  a  look  which  had  both  pain  and  excitement  in  it. 

She  was  silent,  and  they  walked  on  a  few  yards  without  speak- 
ing. The  wood  had  thickened  around  them.  The  high  road  was 
no  longer  visible.  No  sound  of  wheels  or  footsteps  reached  them. 
The  sun  struck  freely  through  the  beech-trees,  already  half  bared, 
whitening  the  grey  trunks  at  intervals  to  an  arrowy  distinctness 
and  majesty,  or  kindling  the  slopes  of  red  and  freshly  fallen  leaves 
below  into  great  patches  of  light  and  flame.  Through  the  stems, 
as  always,  the  girdling  blues  of  the  plain,  and  in  their  faces  a 
gay  and  buoyant  breeze,  speaking  rather  of  spring  than  autumn. 
Robins,  "  yellow  autumn's  nightingales,"  sang  in  the  hedge  to 
their  right.  In  the  pause  between  them,  sun,  wind,  birds  made 
their  charm  felt.  Nature,  perpetual  chorus  as  she  is  to  man,  stole 
in,  urging,  wooing,  defining.  Aldous's  heart  leapt  to  the  spur  of 
a  sudden  resolve. 

Instinctively  she  turned  to  him  at  the  same  moment  as  he  to  her, 
and  seeing  his  look  she  jjaled  a  little. 

"Do  you  guess  at  all  why  it  hurts  me  to  jar  with  you?"  he  said 

—  finding  his  words  in  a  rush,  he  did  not  know  how  —  "  Why  every 
syllable  of  yours  matters  to  me?  It  is  because  I  have  hopes  — 
dreams  —  which  have  become  my  life !     If  you  could  accept  this 

—  this  —  feeling  —  this  devotion  —  which  has  grown  up  in  me  — 
if  you  could  trust  yourself  to  me  —  you  should  have  no  cause,  I 
think  —  ever  —  to  think  nre  hard  or  narrow  towards  any  jjerson, 
any  enthusiasm  for  which  you  had  sympathy.  INIay  I  say  to  you 
all  that  is  in  my  mind  —  or  —  or  —  am  I  presuming  ?  " 

She  looked  away  from  him,  crimson  again.  A  great  wave  of 
exultation  —  boundless,  intoxicating  —  swe2:)t  through  her.  Then 
it  was  checked  by  a  nobler  feeling  —  a  quick,  penitent  sense  of 
his  nobleness. 

"  You  don't  know  me,"  she  said  hurriedly  :  "  you  think  you  do. 
But  I  am  all  odds  and  ends.  I  should  annoy  ■^— wound  —  disap- 
point you." 


118  MAKCELLA  book  i 

His  quiet  grey  eyes  flamed. 

"  Come  and  sit  down  liere,  on  these  dry  roots,"  he  said,  taking 
already  joyous  command  of  lier.  "We  shall  be  undisturbed.  I 
have  so  much  to  say  !  " 

She  obeyed  trembling.  She  felt  no  passion,  but  the  strong  thrill 
of  something  momentous  and  irreparable,  together  with  a  swelling 
pride  —  pride  in  such  homage  from  such  a  man. 

He  led  her  a  few  steps  down  the  slope,  found  a  place  for  her 
against  a  sheltering  trunk,  and  threw  himself  down  beside  her. 
As  he  looked  up  at  the  picture  she  made  amid  the  autumn  branches, 
at  her  bent  head,  her  shy  moved  look,  her  white  hand  lying  un- 
gloved on  her  black  dress,  happiness  overcame  him.  He  took  her 
hand,  found  she  did  not  resist,  drew  it  to  him,  and  clasping  it  in 
both  his,  bent  his  brow,  his  lips  upon  it.  It  shook  in  his  hold,  but 
she  was  passive.  The  mixture  of  emotion  and  self-control  she 
showed  touched  him  deeply.  In  his  chivalrous  modesty  he  asked 
for  nothing  else,  dreamt  of  nothing  more. 

Half  an  hour  later  they  were  still  in  the  same  spot.  There  had 
been  much  talk  between  them,  most  of  it  earnest,  but  some  of  it 
quite  gay,  broken  especially  by  her  smiles.  Her  teasing  mood, 
however,  had  passed  away.  She  was  instead  composed  and  dig- 
nified, like  one  conscious  that  life  had  opened  before  her  to  great 
issues. 

Yet  she  had  flinched  often  before  that  quiet  tone  of  eager  joy  in 
which  he  had  described  his  first  impressions  of  her,  his  surprise  at 
finding  in  her  ideals,  revolts,  passions,  quite  unknown  to  him,  so 
far,  in  the  women  of  his  own  class.  Naturally  he  suppressed, 
perhaps  he  had  even  forgotten,  the  critical  amusement  and  irrita- 
tion she  had  often  excited  in  him.  He  remembered,  he  spoke  only 
of  sympathy,  delight,  pleasxire  —  of  his  sense,  as  it  were,  of  slaking 
some  long-felt  moral  thirst  at  the  well  of  her  fresh  feeling.  So  she 
had  attracted  him  first,  —  by  a  certain  strangeness  and  daring  — 
by  what  she  said  — 

"Now  —  and  above  all  by  what  you  are!"  he  broke  out  sud- 
denly, moved  out  of  his  even  speech.  "  Oh !  it  is  too  much  to 
believe  —  to  dream  of !  Put  your  hand  in  mine,  and  say  again 
that  it  is  really  true  that  we  two  are  to  go  forward  together  — 
that  you  will  be  always  there  to  inspire  —  to  help  —  " 

And  as  she  gave  him  the  liand,  she  must  also  let  him  — in  this 
first  tremor  of  a  pure  passion  —  take  the  kiss  which  was  now  his 
by  right.  That  she  should  flush  and  draw  away  from  him  as  she 
did,  seemed  to  him  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world,  and  the 
most  maidenly. 

Then,  as  their  talk  wandered  on,  bit  by  bit,  he  gave  her  all  his 


CHAP.  XI       ,  MARCELLA  119 

confidence,  and  she  had  felt  herself  honoured  in  receiving  it.  She 
understood  now  at  least  something  —  a  first  fraction  —  of  that 
inner  life,  masked  so  well  beneath  his  quiet  English  capacity  and 
unassuming  manner.  He  had  spoken  of  his  Cambridge  years,  of 
his  friend,  of  the  desire  of  his  heart  to  make  his  landowner's  power 
and  position  contribute  something  towards  that  new  and  better 
social  order,  which  he  too,  like  Hallin  —  though  more  faintly  and 
intermittently  —  believed  to  be  appproaching.  The  difficulties  of 
any  really  new  departure  were  tremendous ;  he  saw  them  more 
plainly  and  more  anxiously  than  Hallin.  Yet  he  believed  that  he 
had  thought  his  way  to  some  effective  reform  on  his  grandfather's 
large  estate,  and  to  some  useful  work  as  one  of  a  group  of  like- 
minded  men  in  Parliament.  She  must  have  often  thought  him 
careless  and  apathetic  towards  his  great  trust.    But  he  was  not  so 

—  not  careless  —  but  paralysed  often  by  intellectual  difficulty,  by 
the  claims  of  conflicting  truths. 

She,  too,  explained  herself  most  freely,  most  frankly.  She 
would  have  nothing  on  her  conscience. 

"  They  will  say,  of  course,"  she  said  with  sudden  nervous  abrupt- 
ness, "  that  I  am  marrying  you  for  wealth  and  position.  And  in 
a  sense  I  shall  be.  No  r  don't  stop  me  !  I  should  not  marry  you 
if  —  if  —  I  did  not  like  you.  But  you  can  give  me  —  you  have  — 
great  opportunities.  I  tell  you  frankly,  I  shall  enjoy  them  and  use 
them.  Oh !  do  think  well  before  you  do  it.  I  shall  7iever  be  a 
meek,  dependent  wife.  A  woman,  to  my  mind,  is  bound  to  cherish 
her  own  individuality  sacredly,  married  or  not  married.  Have 
you  thought  that  I  may  often  think  it  right  to  do  things  you  dis- 
agree with,  that  may  scandalise  your  relations  V  " 

"  You  shall  be  free,"  he  said  steadily.  "  I  have  thought  of  it  all." 

"  Then  there  is  my  father,"  she  said,  turning  her  head  away. 
"  He  is  ill  —  he  wants  pity,  affection.  I  will  accept  no  bond  that 
forces  me  to  disown  him." 

"  Pity  and  affection  are  to  me  the  most  sacred  things  in  the 
world,"  he  said,  kissing  her  hand  gently.  "  Be  content  —  be  at 
rest  —  my  beautiful  lady ! " 

There  was  again  silence,  full  of  thought  on  her  side,  of  heavenly 
happiness  on  his.  The  sun  had  sunk  almost  to  the  verge  of  the 
plain,  the  wind  had  freshened. 

"  We  must  go  home,"  she  said,  springing  up.  "  Taylor  must 
have  got  there  an  hour  ago.     Mother  will  be  anxious,  and  I  must 

—  I  must  tell  them." 

"  I  will  leave  you  at  the  gate,"  he  suggested  as  they  walked 
briskly  ;  "  and  you  will  ask  your  father,  will  you  not,  if  I  may  see 
him  to-night  after  dinner  ?  " 

The  trees  thinned  again  in  front  of  them,  and  the  path  curved 


120  MARCELLA  book  i 

inward  to  the  front.  Suddenly  a  man,  walking  on  the  road, 
diverged  into  the  path  and  came  towards  them.  He  was  swinging 
a  stict  and  humming.  His  head  was  uncovered,  and  his  light 
chestnut  cm'ls  were  blown  about  his  forehead  by  the  wind.  Mar- 
cella,  looking  up  at  the  sound  of  the  steps,  had  a  sudden  impres- 
sion of  something  young  and  radiant,  and  Aldous  stopped  with  an 
exclamation. 

The  new-comer  perceived  them,  and  at  sight  of  Aldous  smiled, 
and  approached,  holding  out  his  hand. 

"  Why,  Raeburn,  I  seem  to  have  missed  you  twenty  times  a  day 
this  last  fortnight.  We  have  been  always  on  each  other's  tracks 
without  meeting.  Yet  I  think,  if  we  had  met,  we  could  have  kept 
our  tempers." 

"  Miss  Boyce,  I  think  you  do  not  know  Mr.  Wharton,"  said 
Aldous,  stiffly.  *  "  May  I  introduce  you  ?  " 

The  young  man's  blue  eyes,  all  alert  and  curious  at  the  mention 
of  Marcella's  name,  ran  over  the  girl's  face  and  form.  Then  he 
bowed  with  a  certain  charming  exaggeration  —  like  an  eighteenth- 
century  beau  with  his  hand  upon  his  heart  —  and  turned  back  with 
tliem  a  step  or  two  towards  tlie  road. 


BOOK  II 

"  A  woman  has  enough  to  govern  wisely 
Her  own  demeanours,  passions  and  divisions." 


CHAPTER  I 

On  a  certain  night  in  the  December  following  the  engagement 
of  Marcella  Boyce  to  Aldous  Raeburn,  the  woods  and  fields  of 
Mellor,  and  all  the  bare  rampart  of  chalk  down  which  divides  the 
Buckinghamshire  plain  from  the  forest  upland  of  the  Chilterns  lay 
steeped  in  moonlight,  and  in  the  silence  which  belongs  to  intense 
frost. 

Winter  had  set  in  before  the  leaf  had  fallen  from  the  last  oaks ; 
already  there  had  been  a  fortnight  or  more  of  severe  cold,  with 
hardly  any  snow.  The  pastures  were  delicately  white ;  the  ditches 
and  the  wet  furrows  in  the  ploughed  land,  the  ponds  on  Mellor 
common,  and  the  stagnant  pool  in  the  midst  of  the  village,  whence 
it  drew  its  main  water  supply,  were  frozen  hard.  But  the  ploughed 
chalk  land  itself  lay  a  dull  grey  beside  the  glitter  of  the  pastures, 
and  the  woods  under  the  bright  sun  of  the  days  dropped  their  rime 
only  to  pass  once  more  with  the  deadly  cold  of  the  night  under  the 
fantastic  empire  of  the  frost.  Every  day  the  veil  of  morning  mist 
rose  lightly  from  the  woods,  uncurtaining  the  wintry  spectacle,  and 
melting  into  the  brilliant  azure  of  an  unflecked  sky ;  every  night 
the  moon  rose  without  a  breath  of  wind,  without  a  cloud;  and  all 
the  branch-work  of  the  trees,  where  they  stood  in  the  open  fields, 
lay  reflected  clean  and  sharp  on  the  whitened  ground.  The  bitter 
cold  stole  into  the  cottages,  marking  the  old  and  feeble  with  the 
touch  of  Azrael ;  while  without,  in  the  field  solitudes,  bird  and 
beast  cowered  benumbed  and  starving  in  hole  and  roosting  place. 

How  still  it  was  —  this  midnight  —  on  the  fringe  of  the  woods! 
Two  men  sitting  concealed  among  some  bushes  at  the  edge  of  Mr. 
Boyce's  largest  cover,  and  bent  upon  a  common  errand,  hardly 
spoke  -to  each  other,  so  strange  and  oppressive  was  the  silence. 
One  was  Jim  Hurd  ;  the  other  was  a  labourer,  a  son  of  old  Patton 
of  the  almshouses,  himself  a  man  of  nearly  sixty,  with  a  small 
wizened  face  showing  sharp  and  white  to-night  under  his  slouched 
hat. 

They  looked  out  over  a  shallow  cup  of  treeless  land  to  a  further 
bound  of  Wooded  hill,  ending  towards  the  north  in  a  bare  bluff  of 

123 


124  MARCELLA  book  ii 

down  shining  steep  under  the  moon.  They  were  in  shadow,  and 
so  was  most  of  the  wide  dip  of  land  before  them;  but  through  a 
gap  to  their  right,  beyond  the  wood,  the  moonbeams  poured,  and 
the  farms  nestling  under  the  opposite  ridge,  the  plantations  rang- 
ing along  it,  and  the  bald  beacon  hill  in  which  it  broke  to  the  plain, 
were  all  in  radiant  light. 

Not  a  stir  of  life  anywhere.  Hurd  put  up  his  hand  to  his  ear, 
and  leaning  forward  listened  intently.  Suddenly  —  a  vibration,  a 
dull  thumping  sound  in  the  soil  of  the  bank  immediately  beside 
him.  He  started,  dropped  his  hand,  and,  stooping,  laid  his  ear  to 
the  ground. 

"  Gi'  us  the  bag,"  he  said  to  his  companion,  drawing  himself 
upright.  "  You  can  hear  'em  turnin'  and  creepin'  as  plain  as  any- 
thing.    Now  then,  you  take  these  and  go  t'  other  side." 

He  handed  over  a  bundle  of  rabbit  nets.  Patton,  crawling  on 
hands  and  knees,  climbed  over  the  low  overgrown  bank  on  which 
the  hedge  stood  into  the  precincts  of  the  wood  itself.  The  state 
of  the  hedge,  leaving  the  cover  practically  open  and  defenceless 
along  its  whole  boundary,  showed  plainly  enough  that  it  belonged 
to  the  Mellor  estate.     But  the  field  beyond  was  Lord  Maxwell's. 

Hurd  applied  himself  to  netting  the  holes  on  his  ow-n  side,  push- 
ing the  brambles  and  imdergrowth  aside  with  the  sure  hand  of 
one  who  had  already  reconnoitred  the  ground.  Then  he  crept 
over  to  Patton  to  see  that  all  was  right  on  the  other  side,  came 
back,  and  went  for  the  ferrets,  of  whom  he  had  four  in  a  closely 
tied  bag. 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  of  intense  excitement  followed.  In  all, 
five  rabbits  bolted  —  three  on  Hurd's  side,  two  on  Patton's.  It 
was  all  the  two  men  could  do  to  secure  their  prey,  manage  the 
ferrets,  and  keep  a  watch  on  the  holes.  Hurd's  great  hands  — 
now  fixing  the  pegs  that  held  the  nets,  now  dealing  death  to  the 
entangled  rabbit,  whose  neck  he  broke  in  an  instant  by  a  turn  of 
the  thumb,  now  winding  up  the  line  that  held  the  ferret  —  seemed 
to  be  everywhere. 

At  last  a  ferret  "laid  up,"  the  string  attached  to  him  having 
either  slipped  or  broken,  greatly  to  the  disgust  of  the  men,  who 
did  not  want  to  be  driven  either  to  dig,  which  made  a  noise  and 
took  time,  or  to  lose  their  animal.  The  rabbits  made  no  more  sign, 
and  it  was  tolerably  evident  that  they  had  got  as  much  as  they 
were  likely  to  get  out  of  that  particular  "  bury." 

Hurd  thrust  his  arm  deep  into  the  hole  where  he  had  put  the 
ferret.  "  Ther's  summat  in  the  way,"  he  declared  at  last.  "  Mos' 
likely  a  dead  un.     Gi'  me  the  spade." 

He  dug  away  the  mouth  of  the  hole,  making  as  little  noise  as 
possible,  and  tried  again.  ' 


CHAP.  I  MAECELLA  125 

"  'Ere  ee  be,"  he  cried,  clutching  at  something,  drew  it  out, 
exclaimed  in  disgust,  flung  it  away,  and  pounced  upon  a  rabbit 
which  on  the  removal  of  the  obstacle  followed  like  a  flash,  pur- 
sued by  the  lost  ferret.  liurd  caught  the  rabbit  by  the  neck, 
held  it  by  main  force,  and  killed  it;  then  put  the  ferret  into 
his  pocket.  "  Lord !  "  he  said,  wiping  his  brow,  "  they  do  come 
suddent." 

What  he  had  pulled  out  was  a  dead  cat ;  a  wretched  puss,  who 
on  some  happy  hunt  had  got  itself  wedged  in  the  hole,  and  so  per- 
ished there  miserably.  He  and  Patton  stooped  over  it  wondering; 
then  Hard  walked  some  paces  along  the  bank,  looking  warily  out  to 
the  right  of  him  across  the  open  country  all  the  time.  He  threw 
the  poor  malodorous  thing  far  into  the  wood  and  returned. 

The  two  meu  lit  their  pipes  under  the  shelter  of  the  bushes, 
and  rested  a  bit,  well  hidden,  but  able  to  see  out  through  a  break 
in  the  bit  of  thicket. 

"  Six  on  'em,"  said  Hurd,  looking  at  the  stark  creatures  beside 
him.  "  I  be  too  done  to  ti'y  another  bury.  I'll  set  a  snare  or  two, 
an'  be  off  home." 

Patton  puffed  silently.  He  was  wondering  whether  Hurd  would 
give  him  one  rabbit  or  two.  Hurd  had  both  "  plant "  and  skill,  and 
Patton  would  have  been  glad  enough  to  come  for  one.  Still  he 
was  a  plaintive  man  with  a  perpetual  grievance,  and  had  already 
made  up  his  mind  that  Hurd  would  treat  him  shabbily  to-night,  in 
spite  of  many  past  demonstrations  that  his  companion  was  on  the 
whole  of  a  liberal  disposition. 

'•You  bin  out  workin'  a  day's  work  already,  han't  yer?"  he  said 
presently.  He  himself  was  out  of  work,  like  half  the  village,  and 
had  been  presented  by  his  wife  with  boiled  swede  for  supper.  But 
he  knew  that  Plurd  had  been  taken  on  at  the  works  at  the  Court, 
where  the  new  drive  was  being  made,  and  a  piece  of  ornamental 
water  enlarged  and  improved  —  mainly  for  the  sake  of  giving 
employment  in  bad  times.  He,  Patton,  and  some  of  his  mates, 
had  tried  to  get  a  job  there.  But  the  steward  had  turned  them 
back.  The  men  off  the  estate  had  first  claim,  and  there  was  not 
room  for  all  of  them.  Yet  Hurd  had  been  taken  on,  which  had  set 
people  talking. 

Hurd  nodded,  and  said  nothing.  He  was  not  disposed  to  be 
communicative  on  the  subject  of  his  employment  at  the  Court. 

"  An'  it  be  true  as  she  be  goin'  to  marry  Muster  Raeburn  ?  " 

Patton  jerked  his  head  towards  the  right,  where  above  a  sloping 
hedge  the  chimneys  of  Mellor  and  the  tops  of  the  Mellor  cedars, 
some  two  or  three  fields  away,  showed  distinct  against  the  deep 
night  blue. 

Hurd  nodded  again,  and  smoked  diligently.     Patton,  nettled  by 


126  MARCELLA  ^    book  n 

this  parsimony  of  speech,  made  the  inward  comment  that  his 
companion  was  "a  deep  un."  The  village  was  perfectly  aware 
of  the  particular  friendship  shown  by  Miss  Boyce  to  the  Hurds. 
He  was  goaded  into  trying  a  more  stinging  topic. 

"  Westall  wor  braggin'  last  night  at  Bradsell's  " —  (Bradsell  was 
the  landlord  of  "  The  Green  Man  "  at  Mellor)  —  "  ee  said  as  how 
they'd  taken  you  on  at  the  Court  —  but  that  didn't  prevent  'em 
knowin'  as  you  was  a  bad  lot.  Ee  said  ee  'ad  'is  eye  on  yer  —  ee 
'ad  warned  yer  twoice  last  year  —  " 

"  That's  a  lie ! "  said  Hurd,  removing  his  pipe  an  instant  and 
putting  it  back  again. 

Patton  looked  more  cheerful. 

"  Well,  ee  spoke  cru'l.  Ee  was  certain,  ee  said,  as  you  could  tell 
a  thing  or  two  about  them  coverts  at  Tudley  End,  if  the  treuth 
were  known.  You  wor  alius  a  loafer,  an'  a  loafer  you'd  be.  Yer 
might  go  snivellin'  to  Miss  Boyce,  ee  said,  but  yer  wouldn't  do  no 
honest  work  —  ee  said  —  not  if  yer  could  help  it  —  that's  what  ee 
said." 

"Devil!"  said  Hurd  between  his  teeth,  with  a  quick  lift  of  all 
his  great  misshapen  chest.  He  took  his  pipe  out  of  his  mouth, 
rammed  it  down  fiercely  with  his  thumb,  and  put  it  in  his  pocket. 

"  Look  out !  "  exclaimed  Patton  with  a  start. 

A  whistle  !  —  clear  and  distinct  —  from  the  opposite  side  of  the 
hollow.  Then  a  man's  figure,  black  and  motionless  an  instant  on 
the  whitened  down,  with  a  black  speck  beside  it ;  lastly,  another 
figure  higher  up  along  the  hill,  in  quick  motion  towards  the  first, 
with  other  specks  behind  it.  The  poachers  instantly  understood  that 
it  was  Westall  —  whose  particular  beat  lay  in  this  part  of  the  estate 
—  signalling  to  his  night  watcher,  Charlie  Dynes,  and  that  the  two 
men  would  be  on  them  in  no  time.  It  was  the  work  of  a  few 
seconds  to  efface  as  far  as  possible  the  traces  of  their  raid,  to  drag 
some  thick  and  trailing  brambles  which  hung  near  over  the  mouth 
of  the  hole  where  there  had  been  digging,  to  catch  up  the  ferrets 
and  game,  and  to  bid  Hurd's  lurcher  to  come  to  heel.  The  two 
men  crawled  up  the  ditch  with  their  burdens  as  far  away  to  lee- 
ward as  they  could  get  from  the  track  by  which  the  keepers  would 
cross  the  field.  The  ditch  was  deeply  overgrown,  and  when  the 
approaching  voices  warned  them  to  lie  close,  they  crouched  under 
a  dense  thicket  of  brambles  and  overhanging  bushes,  afraid  of 
nothing  but  the  noses  of  the  keepers'  dogs. 

Dogs  and  men,  however,  passed  unsuspecting. 

"Hold  still!"  said  Hurd,  checking  Patton's  first  attempt  to 
move.     "  Ee'll  be  back  again  mos'  like.     It's  'is  dodge." 

And  sure  enough  in  twenty  minutes  or  so  the  men  reappeared. 
They   retraced  their  steps  from  the   further  corner  of  the  field, 


CHAP.  I  MARCELLA  127 

where  some  preserves  of  Lord  Maxwell's  approached  very  closely 
to  the  big  Mellor  wood,  and  came  back  again  along  the  diagonal 
path  within  fifty  yards  or  so  of  the  men  in  the  ditch. 

In  the  stillness  the  poachers  could  hear  Westall's  harsh  and 
peremptory  voice  giving  some  orders  to  his  miderling,  or  calling  to 
the  dogs,  who  had  scattered  a  little  in  the  stubble.  Hurd's  own 
dog  quivered  beside  him  once  or  twice. 

Then  steps  and  voices  faded  into  the  distance  and  all  was 
safe. 

The  poachers  crept  out  grinning,  and  watched  the  keepers' 
progress  along  the  hill-face,  till  they  disappeared  into  the  Maxwell 
woods. 

"  Ee  be  sold  again  —  blast  'im !  "  said  Hurd,  with  a  note  of  quite 
disproportionate  exultation  in  his  queer,  cracked  voice.  "  Xow  I'll 
set  them  snares.     But  you'd  better  git  home." 

Patton  took  the  hint,  gave  a  grunt  of  thanks  as  his  companion 
handed  him  two  rabbits,  which  he  stowed  away  in  the  capacious 
pockets  of  his  poacher's  coat,  and  slouched  off  home  by  as  sheltered 
and  roundabout  a  way  as  possible. 

Hurd,  left  to  himself,  stowed  his  nets  and  other  apparatus  in  a 
hidden  crevice  of  the  bank,  and  strolled  along  to  set  his  snares  in 
three  hare-runs,  well  known  to  him,  round  the  further  side  of  the 
wood. 

Then  he  waited  impatiently  for  the  striking  of  the  clock  in 
Mellor  chiu'ch.  The  cold  was  bitter,  but  his  night's  work  was 
not  over  yet,  and  he  had  had  very  good  reasons  for  getting  rid  of 
Patton. 

Almost  immediately  the  bell  rang  out,  the  echo  rolling  round 
the  bend  of  the  hills  in  the  frosty  silence.  Half-past  twelve  Hurd 
scrambled  over  the  ditch,  pushed  his  way  through  the  dilapidated 
hedge,  and  began  to  climb  the  ascent  of  the  wood.  The  outskirts 
of  it  were  filled  with  a  thin  mixed  growth  of  sapling  and  under- 
wood, but  the  high  centre  of  it  was  crowned  by  a  grove  of  full- 
grown  beeches,  through  which  the  moon,  now  at  its  height, 
was  playing  freely,  as  Hurd  clambered  upwards  amid  the  dead 
leaves  just  freshly  strewn,  as  though  in  yearly  festival,  about  their 
polished  trunks.  Such  infinite  grace  and  strength  in  the  line  work 
of  the  branches  !  — branches  not  bent  into  gnarled  and  unexpected 
fantasies,  like  those  of  the  oak,  but  gathered  into  every  conceivable 
harmony  of  upward  curve  and  sweep,  rising  all  together,  black 
against  the  silvery  lights  each  tree  related  to  and  completing  its 
neighbour,  as  though  the  whole  wood,  so  finely  rounded  on  itself 
and  to  the  hill,  were  but  one  majestic  conception  of  a  master 
artist. 

But  Hurd  saw  nothing  of  this  as  he  plunged  through  the  leaves. 


128  MARCELLA  book  ii 

He  was  thinking  that  it  was  extremely  likely  a  man  would  be  on 
the  look-out  for  him  to-night- under  the  big  beeches  —  a  man  with 
some  business  to  propose  to  him.  A  few  words  dropped  in  his  ear 
at  a  certain  public-house  the  night  before  had  seemed  to  him  to 
mean  this,  and  he  had  accordingly  sent  Patton  out  of  the  way. 

But  when  he  got  to  the  top  of  the  hill  no  one  was  to  be  seen 
or  heard,  and  he  sat  him  down  on  a  fallen  log  to  smoke  and 
wait  awhile. 

He  had  no  sooner,  however,  taken  his  seat  than  he  shifted  it 
uneasily,  turning  himself  round  so  as  to  look  in  the  other  direc- 
tion. For  in  front  of  him,  as  he  was  first  placed,  there  was  a  gap 
in  the  trees,  and  over  the  lower  wood,  plainly  visible  and  challeng- 
ing attention,  rose  the  dark  mass  of  Mellor  House.  And  the  sight 
of  Mellor  suggested  reflections  just  now  that  were  not  particularly 
agreeable  to  Jim  Hurd. 

He  had  just  been  poaching  Mr.  Boyce's  rabbits  without  any  sort 
of  scruple.  But  the  thought  of  Miss  Boyce  was  not  pleasant  to 
him  when  he  was  out  on  these  nightly  raids. 

Why  had  she  meddled  ?  He  bore  her  a  queer  sort  of  grudge  for 
it.  He  had  just  settled  down  to  the  bit  of  cobbling  which,  together 
witli  his  wife's  plait,  served  him  for  a  blind,  and  was  full  of  a  secret 
excitement  as  to  various  plans  he  had  in  hand  for  "  doing  "  Westall, 
combining  a  maximum  of  gain  for  the  winter  with  a  maximum  of 
safety,  when  Miss  Boyce  walked  in,  radiant  with  the  news  that 
there  was  employment  for  him  at  the  Court,  on  the  new  works, 
whenever  he  liked  to  go  and  ask  for  it. 

And  then  she  had  given  him  an  odd  look. 

"  And  I  was  to  pass  you  on  a  message  from  Lord  Maxwell, 
Hurd,"  she  had  said  :  "  '  You  tell  him  to  keep  out  of  Westall's  way 
for  the  future,  and  bygones  shall  be  bygones.'  Now,  I'm  not  going 
to  ask  wliat  that  means.  If  you've  been  breaking  some  of  our 
landlords'  law,  I'm  not  going  to  say  I'm  shocked.  I'd  alter  the 
law  to-morrow,  if  I  could !  —  you  know  I  would.  But  I  do  say 
you're  a  fool  if  you  go  on  with  it,  now  you've  got  good  work  for 
the  winter ;  you  must  please  remember  your  wife  and  children." 

And  there  he  had  sat  like  a  log,  staring  at  her  —  both  he  and 
Minta  not  knowing  where  to  look,  or  how  to  speak.  Then  at  last 
his  wife  had  broken  out,  crying : 

"  Oh,  miss  !  we  should  ha  starved  —  " 

And  Miss  Boyce  had  stopped  her  in  a  moment,  catching  her 
by  the  hand.  Didn't  she  know  it  ?  Was  she  there  to  preach  to 
them  ?  Only  Hurd  must  promise  not  to  do  it  any  more,  for  his 
wife's  sake. 

And  he  —  stammering  —  left  without  excuse  or  resource,  either 
against  her  charge,  or  the  work  she  offered  him  —  had  promised 


CHAP.  I  MARCELLA  129 

her,  and  promised  her,  moreover  —  in  his  trepidation  —  with  more 
fervency  than  he  at  all  liked  to  remember. 

For  about  a  fortnight,  perhaps,  lie  had  gone  to  the  Court  by  day, 
and  had  kept  indoors  by  night.  Then,  just  as  the  vagabond 
passions,  the  Celtic  instincts,  so  long  repressed,  so  lately  roused, 
were  goading  at  him  again,  he  met  Westall  in  the  road  —  AVestall, 
who  looked  him  over  from  top  to  toe  with  an  insolent  smile,  as 
much  as  to  say,  "  Well,  my  man,  we've  got  the  whip  hand  of  you 
now  !  "  That  same  night  he  crept  out  again  in  the  dark  and  the 
early  morning,  in  spite  of  all  Minta's  tears  and  scolding. 

Well,  what  matter?  As  towards  the  rich  and  the  law,  he  had 
the  morals  of  the  slave,  who  does  not  feel  that  he  has  had  any 
part  in  making  the  rules  he  is  expected  to  keep,  and  breaks 
them  when  he  can  with  glee.  It  made  him  uncomfortable,  cer- 
tainly, that  Miss  Boyce  should  come  in  and  out  of  their  place  as 
she  did,  should  be  teaching  Willie  to  read,  and  bringing  her  old 
dresses  to  make  up  for  Daisy  and  Nellie,  while  he  was  making  a 
fool  of  her  in  this  way.  Still  he  took  it  all  as  it  came.  One 
sensation  wiped  out  another. 

Besides,  Miss  Boyce  had,  after  all,  much  part  in  tliis  double  life 
of  his.  Whenever  he  was  at  home,  sitting  over  the  fire  with  a 
pipe,  he  read  those  papers  and  things  she  had  brought  him  in  the 
summer.  He  had  not  taken  much  notice  of  them  at  first.  Now  he 
spelled  them  out  again  and  again.  He  had  always  thought  "them 
rich  people  took  advantage  of  yer."  But  he  had  never  supposed, 
somehow,  they  were  such  thieves,  such  mean  thieves,  as  it  appeared 
they  were.  A  curious  ferment  filled  his  restless,  inconsequent 
brain.  The  poor  were  downtrodden,  but  they  were  coming  to 
their  rights.  The  land  and  its  creatures  were  for  the  people  !  not 
for  the  idle  rich.  Above  all,  Westall  was  a  devil,  and  must  be  put 
down.  For  the  rest,  if  he  could  have  given  words  to  experience, 
he  would  have  said  that  since  he  began  to  go  out  poaching  he  had 
burst  his  prison  and  found  himself.  A  life  which  was  not  merely 
endurance  pulsed  in  him.  The  scent  of  the  night  woods,  the  keen- 
ness of  the  night  air,  the  tracks  and  ways  of  the  wild  creatures, 
the  wiles  by  which  he  slew  them,  the  talents  and  charms  of  his  dog 
Bi'uno  —  these  things  had  developed  in  him  new  aptitudes  both 
of  mind  and  body,  which  were  in  themselves  exhilaration.  He 
carried  his  dwarf's  frame  more  erect,  breathed  fi'om  an  ampler 
chest.  As  for  his  work  at  the  Court,  he  thought  of  it  often  with 
impatience  and  disgust.  It  was  a  more  useful  blind  than  his  cob- 
bling, or  he  would  have  shammed  illness  and  got  quit  of  it. 

"  Them  were  sharp  uns  that  managed  that  business  at  Tudley 
End ! "  He  fell  thinking  about  it  and  chuckling  over  it  as  he 
smoked.     Two  of  Westall's  best  coverts  swept  almost  clear  just  be- 


130  MARCELLA  book  ii 

fore  the  big  shoot  in  November  I  —  and  all  done  so  quick  and  quiet, 
before  you  could  say  "  Jack  Robinson."  Well,  there  was  plenty 
more  yet,  more  woods,  and  more  birds.  There  were  those  coverts 
down  there,  on  the  jNIellor  side  of  the  hollow  —  they  had  been  kept 
for  the  last  shoot  in  January.  Hang  him !  why  wasn't  that  fellow 
up  to  time  ? 

But  no  one  came,  and  he  must  sit  on,  shivering  and  smoking,  a 
sack  across  his  shoulders.  As  the  stir  of  nerve  and  blood  caused 
by  the  ferreting  subsided,  his  spirits  began  to  sink.  Mists  of  Celtic 
melancholy,  perhaps  of  Celtic  superstition,  gained  upon  him.  He 
found  himself  glancing  from  side  to  side,  troubled  by  the  noises  in 
the  wood.  A  sad  light  wind  crept  about  the  trunks  like  a  whisper; 
the  owls  called  overhead ;  sometimes  there  was  a  sudden  sharp 
rustle  or  fall  of  a  branch  that  startled  him.  Yet  he  knew  every 
track,  every  tree  in  that  wood.  Up  and  down  that  field  outside  he 
had  followed  his  father  at  the  plough,  a  little  sickly  object  of  a  lad, 
yet  seldom  unhappy,  so  long  as  childhood  lasted,  and  his  mother's 
temper  could  be  fled  from,  either  at  school  or  in  the  fields.  Under 
that  boundary  hedge  to  the  right  he  had  lain  stunned  and  bleeding 
all  a  summer  afternoon,  after  old  Westall  had  thrashed  him,  his 
heart  scorched  within  him  by  the  sense  of  wrong  and  the  craving 
for  revenge.  On  that  dim  path  leading  down  the  slope  of  the 
wood,  George  Westall  had  once  knocked  him  down  for  disturbing 
a  sitting  pheasant.  He  could  see  himself  falling  —  the  tall,  power- 
ful lad  standing  over  him  with  a  grin. 

Then,  inconsequently,  he  began  to  think  of  his  father's  death. 
He  made  a  good  end  did  the  old  man.  "Jim,  my  lad,  the  Lord's 
verra  merciful,"  or  "Jim,  you'll  look  after  Ann."  Ann  was  the 
only  daughter.  Then  a  sigh  or  two,  and  a  bit  of  sleep,  and  it  was 
done. 

And  everybody  must  go  the  same  way,  must  come  to  the  same 
stopping  of  the  breath,  the  same  awfulness  —  in  a  life  of  blind 
habit  —  of  a  moment  that  never  had  been  before  and  never  could 
be  again?  He  did  not  put  it  to  these  words,  but  the  shudder 
that  is  in  the  thought  for  all  of  us,  seized  him.  He  was  very  apt  to 
think  of  dying,  to  ponder  in  his  secret  heart  how  it  would  be,  and 
when.  And  always  it  made  him  very  soft  towards  Minta  and  the 
children.  Not  only  did  the  life  instinct  cling  to  them,  to  the 
warm  human  hands  and  faces  hemming  him  in  and  protecting 
him  from  that  darkness  beyond  with  its  shapes  of  terror.  But  to 
think  of  himself  as  sick,  and  gasping  to  his  end,  like  his  father, 
was  to  put  himself  back  in  his  old  relation  to  his  wife,  when  they 
were  first  married.  He  might  cross  Minta  now,  but  if  he  came  to 
lie  sick,  he  could  see  himself  there,  in  the  future,  following  her 
about  with  his  eyes,  and  thanking  her,  and  doing  all  she  told  him, 


CHAP.  I  MARCELLA  131 

just  as  he'd  used  to  do.  He  couldn't  die  without  her  to  help  him 
through.  The  very  idea  of  her  being  taken  first,  roused  in  him  a 
kind  of  spasm  —  a  fierceness,  a  clenching  of  the  hands.  But  all 
the  same,  in  this  poaching  matter,  he  must  have  his  way,  and  she 
must  just  get  used  to  it. 

Ah !  a  low  whistle  from  the  further  side  of  the  wood.  He 
replied,  and  was  almost  instantly  joined  by  a  tall  slouching  youth, 
by  day  a  blacksmith's  apprentice  at  Gairsley,  the  Maxwells'  vil- 
age,  who  had  often  brought  him  information  before. 

The  two  sat  talking  for  ten  minutes  or  so  on  the  log.  Then 
they  parted ;  Hurd  went  back  to  the  ditch  where  he  had  left  the 
game,  put  two  rabbits  into  his  pockets,  left  the  other  two  to  be 
removed  in  the  morning  when  he  came  to  look  at  his  snares,  and 
went  off  home,  keeping  as  much  as  possible  in  the  shelter  of  the 
hedges.  On  one  occasion  he  braved  the  moonlight  and  the  open 
field,  rather  than  pass  through  a  woody  corner  where  an  old  farmer 
had  been  found  dead  some  six  years  before.  Then  he  reached  a 
deep  lane  leading  to  the  village,  and  was  soon  at  his  own  door. 

As  he  climbed  the  wooden  ladder  leading  to  the  one  bedroom 
where  he,  his  wife,  and  his  fom-  children  slept,  his  wife  sprang  up 
in  bed. 

"Jim,  you  must  be  perished  —  such  a  night  as  't  is.  Oh,  Jim  — 
where  ha'  you  bin  ?  " 

She  was  a  miserable  figui'e  in  her  coarse  nightgown,  with  her 
grizzling  hair  wild  about  her,  and  her  thin  arms  nervously  out- 
stretched along  the  bed.  The  room  was  freezing  cold,  and  the 
moonlight  stealing  through  the  scanty  bits  of  curtains  brought 
into  dismal  clearness  the  squalid  bed,  the  stained  walls,  and  bare 
uneven  floor.  On  an  iron  bedstead,  at  the  foot  of  the  large  bed, 
lay  Willie,  restless  and  coughing,  with  the  elder  girl  beside  him 
fast  asleep ;  the  other  girl  lay  beside  her  mother,  and  the  wooden 
box  with  rockers,  which  held  the  baby,  stood  within  reach  of  Mrs. 
Hurd's  arm. 

He  made  her  no  answer,  but  went  to  look  at  the  coughing  boy, 
who  had  been  in  bed  for  a  week  with  bronchitis. 

"  You've  never  been  and  got  in  Westall's  way  again  ?  "  she  said 
anxiously.  "  It's  no  good  my  tryin'  to  get  a  wink  o'  sleep  when 
you're  out  like  this." 

"  Don't  you  worrit  yourself,"  he  said  to  her,  not  roughly,  but 
decidedly.     "  I'm  all  right.     This  boy's  bad,  Minta." 

"  Yes,  an'  I  kep'  up  the  fire  an'  put  the  spout  on  the  kettle,  too." 
She  pointed  to  the  grate  and  to  the  thin  line  of  .steam,  which  was 
doing  its  powerless  best  against  the  arctic  cold  of  the  room. 

Hurd  bent  over  the  boy  and  tried  to  put  him  comfortable.  The 
child,  weak  and  feverish,  only  began  to  cry  —  a  hoarse  bronchial 


132  MARCELLA  book  ii 

crying,  which  threatened  to  wake  the  baby.  He  could  not  be 
stopped,  so  Hurd  made  haste  to  take  oif  his  own  coat  and  boots, 
and  then  lifted  the  poor  soul  in  his  arms. 

"  You'll  be  quiet,  Will,  and  go  sleep,  won't  yer,  if  daddy  takes 
keer  on  you  ?  " 

He  wrapped  his  own  coat  round  the  little  fellow,  and  lying  down 
beside  his  wife,  took  him  on  his  arm  and  drew  the  thin  brown 
blankets  over  himself  and  his  charge.  He  himself  was  warm 
with  exercise,  and  in  a  little  while  the  huddling  creatui-es  on 
either  side  of  him  were  warm  too.  The  quick,  panting  breath  of 
the  boy  soon  showed  that  he  was  asleep.  His  father,  too,  sank 
almost  instantly  into  deep  gulfs  of  sleep.  Only  the  wife  —  nervous, 
overdone,  and  possessed  by  a  thousand  fears  —  lay  tossing  and 
wakeful  hour  after  hour,  while  the  still  glory  of  the  winter  night 
passed  by. 

CHAPTER  II 

"  Well,  Marcella,  have  you  and  Lady  Winterbourne  arranged 
your  classes  ?  " 

Mrs.  Boyce  was  stooping  over  a  piece  of  needlework  beside  a 
window  in  the  Mellor  di'awing-room,  trying  to  catch  the  rapidly 
failing  light.  It  was  one  of  the  last  days  of  December.  Marcella 
had  just  come  in  from  the  village  rather  early,  for  they  were  ex- 
pecting a  visitor  to  arrive  about  tea  time,  and  had  thrown  herself, 
tired,  into  a  chair  near  her  mother. 

"  We  have  got  about  ten  or  eleven  of  the  younger  women  to  join ; 
none  of  the  old  ones  will  come,"  said  Marcella.  "  Lady  Winter- 
bourne  has  heard  of  a  capital  teacher  from  Dunstable,  and  we 
hope  to  get  started  next  week.  Thei'e  is  money  enough  to  pay 
wages  for  three  months." 

In  spite  of  her  fatigue,  her  eye  was  bright  and  restless.  The 
energy  of  thought  and  action  from  which  she  had  just  emerged 
still  breathed  from  every  limb  and  feature. 

"  Where  have  you  got  the  money  ?  " 

"  Mr.  Raeburu  has  managed  it,"  said  Marcella,  briefly. 

Mrs.  Boyce  gave  a  slight  shrug  of  the  shoulders. 

"  And  afterwards  — what  is  to  become  of  your  product?" 

"  There  is  a  London  shop  Lady  Winterbourne  knows  will  take 
what  we  make  if  it  turns  out  well.  Of  course,  we  don't  expect  to 
pay  our  way." 

Marcella  gave  her  explanations  with  a  certain  stiffness  of  self-de- 
fence. She  and  Lady  Winterbourne  had  evolved  a  scheme  for  reviv- 
ing and  improving  the  local  industry  of  straw-plaiting,  which  after 
years  of  decay  seemed  now  on  the  brink  of  final  disappearance. 


CHAP.  II  MARCELLA  133 

The  village  women  who  could  at  present  earn  a  few  pence  a  week 
by  the  coarser  kinds  of  work  were  to  be  instriicted,  not  only  in  the 
finer  and  better  paid  sorts,  but  also  in  the  making  up  of  the  plait 
when  done,  and  the  "blocking"  of  hats  and  bonnets  —  processes 
hitherto  carried  on  exclusively  at  one  or  two  large  local  centres. 

"  You  don't  expect  to  pay  your  way  ?  "  repeated  Mrs.  Boyce. 
"  What,  never  ?  " 

"  Well,  we  shall  give  twelve  to  fourteen  shillings  a  week  wages. 
We  shall  find  the  materials,  and  the  room — and  prices  are  very 
low,  the  whole  trade  depressed." 

Mrs.  Boyce  laughed. 

"  I  see.     How  many  workers  do  you  expect  to  get  together  ?  " 

"  Oh !  eventually,  about  two  hundred  in  the  three  villages.  It 
will  regenerate  the  whole  life  !  "  said  Marcella,  a  sudden  ray  from 
the  inner  warmth  escaping  her,  against  her  will. 

Mrs.  Boyce  smiled  again,  and  turned  her  work  so  as  to  see  it 
better. 

"Does  Aldous  understand  what  you  are  letting  him  in  for?  " 

Marcella  flushed. 

"  Perfectly.     It  is  '  ransom  '  —  that's  all." 

"  And  he  is  ready  to  take  your  view  of  it  ?  " 

"  Oh,  he  thinks  us  economically  unsound,  of  course,"  said  Mar- 
cella, impatiently.  "  So  we  are.  All  care  for  the  human  being 
under  the  present  state  of  things  is  economically  unsound.  But 
he  likes  it  no  more  than  I  do." 

"  Well,  lucky  for  you  he  has  a  long  purse,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce, 
lightly.  "  But  I  gather,  Marcella,  you  don't  insist  upon  his  spend- 
ing it  all  on  straw-plaiting.  He  told  me  yesterday  he  had  taken 
the  Hertford  Street  house." 

"  We  shall  live  quite  simply,"  said  Marcella,  quickly. 

"  AVhat,  no  carriage?  " 

Mai'cella  hesitated. 

"  A  carriage  saves  time.  And  if  one  goes  about  much,  it  does 
not  cost  so  much  more  than  cabs." 

"  So  you  mean  to  go  about  much  ?  Lady  Winterbourne  talks  to 
me  of  presenting  you  in  May." 

"That's  Miss  Raeburn,"  cried  Marcella.  "She  says  I  must,  and 
all  the  family  would  be  scandalised  if  I  didn't  go.  But  you  can't 
imagine  —  " 

She  stopped  and  took  off  her  hat,  pushing  the  hair  back  from 
her  forehead.  A  look  of  worry  and  excitement  had  replaced  the 
radiant  glow  of  her  first  resting  moments. 

"That  you  like  it?"  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  bluntly.  "Well,  T  don't 
know.  Most  young  women  like  pretty  gowns,  and  great  functions, 
and  prominent  positions.     I  don't  call  you  an  ascetic,  Marcella." 


134  MARCELLA  book  ii 

Marcella  winced. 

"One  has  to  fit  oneself  to  circumstances,"  she  said  proudly. 
"  One  may  hate  the  circumstances,  but  one  can't  escape  them." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  think  you  will  hate  your  circumstances,  my  dear ! 
You  would  be  very  foolish  if  you  did.  Have  you  heard  finally  how 
much  the  settlement  is  to  be?  " 

"  No,"  said  Marcella,  shortly.  "  I  have  not  asked  papa,  nor  any- 
body." 

"It  was  only  settled  this  morning.  Your  father  told  me  hur- 
riedly as  he  went  out.  You  ai-e  to  have  two  thousand  a  year  of 
your  own." 

The  tone  was  dry,  and  the  speaker's  look  as  she  turned  towards 
her  daughter  had  in  it  a  curious  hostility ;  but  Marcella  did  not 
notice  her  mother's  manner. 

"  It  is  too  much,"  she  said  in  a  low  voice. 

She  had  thrown  back  her  head  against  the  chair  in  which  she 
sat,  and  her  half-troubled  eyes  were  wandering  over  the  darkening 
expanse  of  lawn  and  avenue. 

"  He  said  he  wished  you  to  feel  perfectly  free  to  live  your  own 
life,'  and  to  follow  out  your  owai  projects.  Oh,  for  a  person  of  proj- 
ects, my  dear,  it  is  not  so  much.  You  will  do  well  to  husband  it. 
Keep  it  for  yourself.  Get  what  you  want  of  it :  not  what  other 
people  want." 

Again  Marcella's  attention  missed  the  note  of  agitation  in  her 
mother's  sharp  manner.  A  soft  look  —  a  look  of  compunction  — 
passed  across  her  face.  Mrs.  Boyce  began  to  put  her  working 
things  away,  finding  it  too  dark  to  do  any  more. 

"  By  the  way,"  said  the  jnother,  suddenly,  "  I  suppose  you  will 
be  going  over  to  help  him  in  his  canvassing  tliis  next  few  weeks? 
Your  father  says  the  election  will  be  certainly  in  February." 

Marcella  moved  uneasily. 

" He  knows,"  she  said  at  last,  "that  I  don't  agree  with  him  in  so 
many  things.  He  is  so  full  of  this  Peasant  Proprietors  Bill.  And 
I  hate  peasant  properties.    They  are  nothing  but  a  step  backwards." 

Mrs.  Boyce  lifted  her  eyebrows. 

"  That's  unlucky.  He  tells  me  it  is  likely  to  be  his  chief  work 
in  the  new  Parliament.  Isn't  it,  on  the  whole,  probable  that  he 
knows  more  about  the  country  than  you  do,  Marcella?" 

Marcella  sat  up  with  sudden  energy  and  gathered  her  walking 
things  together. 

"It  isn't  knowledge  that's  the  question,  mamma;  it's  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  thing.     /  mayn't  know  anything,  but  the  people  whom^ 
I  follow  know.     There   are  the  two  sides  of  thought  —  the  two 
ways  of  looking  at  things.     I  warned  Aldous  when  he  asked  me  to 
marry  him  which  I  belonged  to.     And  he  accepted  it." 


CHAP.  11  MARCELLA  135 

Mrs.  Boyce's  thin  fine  mouth  curled  a  little. 

"  So  you  suppose  that  Aldous  had  his  wits  about  him  on  tliat 
great  occasion  as  much  as  you  had  ?  " 

Marcella  first  started,  then  quivered  with  nervous  indignation. 

"  Mother,"  she  said,  "  I  can't  bear  it.  It's  not  the  first  time  that 
you  have  talked  as  though  I  had  taken  some  unfair  advantage  — 
made  an  unworthy  bargain.  It  is  too  hard  too.  Other  people  may 
think  what  they  like,  but  that  you  —  " 

Her  voice  failed  her,  and  the  tears  came  into  her  eyes.  She  was 
tired  and  over-excited,  and  the  contrast  betweeii  the  atmosphere  of 
flattery  and  consideration  which  surrounded  her  in  Aldous's  com- 
pany, in  the  village,  or  at  the  Winterbournes',  and  this  tone  which 
her  mother  so  often  took  with  her  when  they  were  alone,  was  at 
the  moment  hardly  to  be  endured. 

Mrs.  Boyce  looked  up  more  gravely. 

"  You  misunderstand  me,  my  dear,"  she  said  quietly.  "I  allow 
myself  to  wonder  at  you  a  little,  but  I  think  no  hard  things  of  you 
ever.     I  believe  you  like  Aldous." 

"Really,  mamma!  "  cried  Mai'cella,  half  hysterically. 

Mrs.  Boyce  had  by  now  rolled  up  her  work  and  shut  her  work- 
basket. 

"  If  you  are  going  to  take  off  your  things,"  she  said,  "  please  tell 
William  that  there  will  be  six  or  seven  at  tea.  You  said,  I  think, 
that  Mr.  Raeburn  was  going  to  bring  Mr.  Hallin?" 

"  Yes,  and  Frank  Leven  is  coming.  AVhen  will  Mr.  Wharton 
be  here  ?  " 

"  Oh,  in  ten  minutes  or  so,  if  his  train  is  punctual.  I  hear  your 
father  just  coming  in." 

Marcella  went  away,  and  Mrs.  Boyce  was  left  a  few  minutes 
alone.  Her  thin  hands  lay  idle  a  moment  on  her  lap,  and  leaning 
towards  the  window  beside  her,  she  looked  out  an  instant  into  the 
snowy  twilight.  Her  mind  was  full  of  its  usual  calm  scorn  for 
those  —  her  daughter  included  —  who  supposed  that  the  human  lot 
was  to  be  mended  by  a  rise  in  weekly  wages,  or  that  suffering  has 
any  necessary  dependence  on  the  amount  of  commodities  of  which 
a  man  disposes.  What  hardship  is  there  in  starving  and  scrubbing 
and  toiling  ?  Had  she  ever  seen  a  labourer's  wife  scrubbing  her  cot- 
tage floor  without  envy,  without  moral  thirst?  Is  it  these  things 
that  kill,  or  any  of  the  great  simple  griefs  and  burdens  ?  Doth  man 
live  by  bread  alone?  The  whole  language  of  social  and  charitable 
enthusiasm  often  raised  in  her  a  kind  of  exasperation. 

So  Marcella  would  be  rich,  excessively  rich,  even  now.  Outside 
the  amount  settled  upon  her,  the  figures  of  Aldous  Raeburn's  present 
income,  irrespective  of  the  inheritance  which  would  come  to  him 
on  his  grandfather's  death,  were  a  good  deal  beyond  what  even 


136  MARCELLA  *  book  ii 

Mr.  Boyce  —  upon  whom  the  daily  spectacle  of  the  Maxwell  wealth 
exercised  a  certain  angering  effect  —  had  supposed. 

Mrs.  Boyce  had  received  the  news  of  the  engagement  with  aston- 
ishment, but  her  after-acceptance  of  the  situation  had  been  marked 
by  all  her  usual  philosophy.  Probably  behind  the  philosophy  there 
was  much  secret  relief.  Marcella  was  provided  for.  Not  the  fond- 
est or  most  contriving  mother  could  have  done  more  for  her  than 
she  had  at  one  stroke  done  for  herself.  During  the  early  autumn 
Mrs.  Boyce  had  experienced  some  moments  of  sharp  prevision  as 
to  what  her  future  relations  might  be  towards  this  strong  and  rest- 
less daughter,  so  determined  to  conquer  a  world  her  mother  had 
renounced.  Now  all  was  clear,  and  a  very  shrewd  observer  could 
allow  her  mind  to  play  freely  with  the  ironies  of  the  situation. 

As  to  Aldous  Raeburn,  she  had  barely  spoken  to  him  before  the 
day  when  Marcella  announced  the  engagement,  and  the  lover  a  few 
hours  later  had  claimed  her  daughter  at  the  mother's  hands  with 
an  emotion  to  which  Mrs.  Boyce  found  her  usual  difficulty  in  re- 
sponding. She  had  done  her  best,  however,  to  be  gracious  and  to 
mask  her  surprise  that  he  should  have  proposed,  that  Lord  Maxwell 
should  have  consented,  and  that  Marcella  should  have  so  lightly 
fallen  a  victiin.  One  surprise,  however,  had  to  be  confessed,  at 
least  to  herself.  After  her  interview  with  her  futire  son-in-law, 
Mrs.  Boyce  realised  that  for  the  first  time  for  fifteen  years  she  was 
likely  to  admit  a  new  friend.  The  impression  made  upon  him  by 
her  own  singular  personality  had  translated  itself  in  feelings  and 
language  which,  against  her  will  as  it  were,  established  an  under- 
standing, an  affinity.  That  she  had  involuntarily  aroused  in  him 
the  profoundest  and  most  chivalrous  pity  was  plain  to  her.  Yet  for 
the  first  time  in  her  life  she  did  not  resent  it ;  and  Marcella  watched 
her  mother's  attitude  with  a  mixture  of  curiosity  and  relief. 

Then  followed  talk  of  an  early  wedding,  communications  from 
Lord  Maxwell  to  Mr.  Boyce  of  a  civil  and  formal  kind,  a  good 
deal  more  notice  from  the  "  county,"  and  finally  this  definite  state- 
ment from  Aldous  Raeburn  as  to  the  settlement  he  proposed  to 
make  upon  his  wife,  and  the  joint  income  which  he  and  she  would 
have  immediately  at  their  disposal. 

Under  all  these  growing  and  palpable  evidences  of  Marcella's 
future  wealth  and  position,  Mrs.  Boyce  had  shown  her  usual  restless 
and  ironic  spirit.  But  of  late,  and  especially  to-day,  restlessness 
had  become  oppression.  While  Marcella  was  so  speedily  to  become 
the  rich  and  independent  woman,  they  themselves,  Marcella's  mother 
and  father,  were  very  poor,  in  difficulties  even,  and  likely  to  remain 
so.  She  gathered  from  her  husband's  grumbling  that  the  provision 
of  a  suitable  trousseau  for  Marcella  would  tax  his  resources  to  their 
utmost.     How  long  would  it  be  before  they  were  dipping  in  Mar- 


CHAP,  u  MARCELLA  137 

cella's  purse  ?  Mrs.  Boj'ce's  self-torineuting  soul  was  possessed  by- 
one  of  those  nightmares  her  pride  had  brought  upon  her  in  grim 
succession  during  these  fifteen  years.  And  this  pride,  strong 
towards  all  the  world,  was  nowhere  so  strong  or  so  indomitable,  at 
this  moment,  as  towards  her  own  daughter.  They  were  practically 
strangers  to  each  other ;  and  they  jarred.  To  enquire  where  the 
fault  lay  would  have  seemed  to  JVIrs.  Boyce  futile. 

Darkness  had  come  on  fast,  and  Mrs.  Boyce  was  in  the  act  of 
ringing  for  lights  when  her  husband  entered. 

"  Where's  Marcella?  "  he  asked  as  he  threw  himself  into  a  chair 
with  the  air  of  irritable  fatigue  which  was  now  habitual  to  him. 

"  Only  gone  to  take  oft'  her  things  and  tell  William  about  tea. 
She  will  be  down  directly." 

"  Does  she  know  about  that  settlement?  " 

"  Yes,  I  told  her.  She  thought  it  generous,  but  not  —  I  think  — 
unsuitable.     The  world  cannot  be  reformed  on  nothing." 

"  Reformed !  —  fiddlesticks  !  "  said  Mr.  Boyce,  angrily.  "  I  never 
saw  a  girl  with  a  head  so  full  of  nonsense  in  my  life.  Where  does 
she  get  it  from?  Why  did  you  let  her  go  about  in  London  with 
those  people  ?  She  may  be  spoilt  for  good.  Ten  to  one  she'll 
make  a  laughing  stock  of  herself  and  every^body  belonging  to  her, 
before  she's  done." 

"  Well,  that  is  Mr.  Raeburn's  affair.  I  think  I  should  take  him 
into  account  more  than  Marcella  does,  if  I  were  she.  But  probably 
she  knows  best." 

"  Of  course  she  does.  He  has  lost  his  head  ;  any  one  can  see 
that.  While  she  is  in  the  room,  he  is  like  a  man  possessed.  It 
doesn't  sit  well  on  that  kind  of  fellow.  It  makes  him  ridiculous. 
I  told  him  half  the  settlement  would  be  ample.  She  would  only 
spend  the  rest  on  nonsense." 

"You  told  him  that?" 

"  Yes,  I  did.  Oh  !  "  —  with  an  angry  look  at  her  —  "I  suppose 
you  thought  I  should  want  to  sponge  upon  her  ?  I  am  as  much 
obliged  to  you  as  usual !  " 

A  red  spot  rose  in  his  wife's  thin  cheek,  but  she  turned  and 
answered  him  gently,  so  gently  that  he  had  the  rare  sensation 
of  having  triumphed  over  her.  He  allowed  himself  to  be  mollified, 
and  she  stood  there  over  the  fire,  chatting  with  him  for  some  time, 
a  friendly  natural  note  in  her  voice  which  was  rare  and,  insensibly, 
soothed  him  like  an  opiate.  She  chatted  about  Marcella's  trous- 
seau gowns,  detailing  her  own  contrivances  for  economy ;  about  the 
probable  day  of  the  wedding,  the  latest  gossip  of  the  election,  and 
so  on.  He  sat  shading  his  eyes  from  the  firelight,  and  now  and 
then  throwing  in  a  word  or  two.     The  inmost  soul  of  him  was  very 


138  MAECELLA  book  ii 

piteous,  harrowed  often  by  a  new  dread  —  the  dread  of  dying. 
The  woman  beside  him  held  him  in  tlie  liollow  of  her  hand.  In 
the  long  wrestle  between  her  nature  and  his,  she  had  conquered. 
His  fear  of  her  and  his  need  of  her  had  even  come  to  supply  the 
place  of  a  dozen  ethical  instincts  he  was  naturally  without. 

Some  discomfort,  probably  physical,  seemed  at  last  to  break  up 
his  moment  of  rest. 

"  Well,  I  tell  you,  I  often  wish  it  were  the  other  man,"  he  said, 

with  some  impatience.     "  Raeburn's  so  d d  superior.     I  suppose 

I  offended  him  by  what  I  said  of  Marcella's  whims,  and  the  risk  of 
letting  her  control  so  much  money  at  her  age,  and  with  her  ideas. 
You  never  saw  such  an  air  !  — all  very  quiet,  of  course.  He  but- 
toned his  coat  and  got  up  to  go,  as  though  I  were  no  more  worth 
considering  than  the  table.  Neither  he  nor  his  precious  grand- 
father need  alarm  themselves  :  I  shan't  trouble  them  as  a  visitor. 
If  I  shock  them,  they  bore  me  —  so  we're  quits.  Marcella  '11  have 
to  come  here  if  she  wants  to  see  her  father.  But  owing  to  your 
charming  system  of  keeping  her  away  from  us  all  her  childhood, 
she's  not  likely  to  want." 

"You  mean  Mr.  Wharton  by  the  other  man?"  said  Mrs.  Boyce, 
not  defending  herself  or  Aldous. 

"Yes,  of  course.  But  he  came  on  the  scene  just  too  late,  worse 
luck!  Why  wouldn't  he  have  done  just  as  well?  He's  as  mad  as 
she  —  madder.  "He  believes  all  the  rubbish  she  does  —  talks  such 
rot,  the  people  tell  me,  in  his  meetings.  But  then  he's  good  com- 
pany —  he  amuses  you  —  you  don't  need  to  be  on  your  p's  and  q's 
with  Mm.  Why  wouldn't  she  have  taken  up  with  him?  As  far 
as  money  goes  they  could  have  rubbed  along.  He's  not  the  man 
to  starve  when  there  are  game-pies  going.     It's  just  bad  luck." 

Mrs.  Boyce  smiled  a  little. 

"  What  there  is  to  make  you  suppose  that  she  would  have 
inclined  to  him,  I  don't  exactly  see.  She  has  been  taken  up  with 
Mr.  Raeburn,  really,  from  the  first  week  of  her  arrival  here." 

"Well,  I  dare  say  —  there  was  no  one  else,"  said  her  husband, 
testily.  "  That's  natural  enough.  It's  just  what  I  say.  All  I 
know  is,  Wharton  shall  be  free  to  use  this  house  just  as  he  pleases 
during  his  canvassing,  whatever  the  Raeburns  may  say." 

He  bent  forward  and  jDoked  the  somewhat  sluggish  fire  with 
a  violence  which  hindered  rather  than  helped  it.  Mrs.  Boyce's 
smile  had  quite  vanished.  She  perfectly  understood  all  that  was 
implied,  whether  in  his  instinctive  dislike  of  Aldous  Raeburn,  or 
in  his  cordiality  towards  young  Wharton. 

After  a  minute's  silence  he  got  up  again  and  left  the  room, 
walking,  as  she  observed,  with  difficulty.  She  stopped  a  min- 
ute or  so  in   the   same  place   after  he  had  gone,  tui-ning  her 


CHAP,  n  MARCELLA  139 

rings  absently  on  her  thin  fingers.  She  was  thinking  of  some 
remarks  which  Dr.  Clarke,  the  excellent  and  experienced  local 
doctor,  had  made  to  her  on  the  occasion  of  his  last  visit.  With 
all  the  force  of  her  strong  will  she  had  set  herself  to  disbelieve 
them.  But  they  had  had  subtle  effects  already.  Finally  she  too 
went  upstairs,  bidding  Marcella,  whom  she  met  coming  down, 
hurry  William  with  the  tea,  as  Mr.  Wharton  might  arrive  any 
moment. 

Marcella  saw  the  room  shut  up  —  the  large,  shabby,  beautiful 
room  —  the  lamps  brought  in,  fresh  wood  thrown  on  the  fire  to 
make  it  blaze,  and  the  tea-table  set  out.  Then  she  sat  herself  down 
on  a  low  chair  by  the  fire,  leaning  forward  with  her  elbows  on  her 
knees  and  her  hands  clasped  in  front  of  her.  Her  black  dress  revealed 
her  fine  full  throat  and  her  white  wrists,  for  she  had  an  impatience 
of  restraint  anywhere,  and  wore  frills  and  falls  of  black  lace  where 
other  people  would  have  followed  the  fashion  in  high  collars  and 
close  wristbands.  What  must  have  struck  any  one  with  an  obser- 
vant eye,  as  she  sat  thus,  thrown  into  beautiful  light  and  shade  by 
the  blaze  of  the  wood  fire,  was  the  massiveness  of  the  head  com- 
pared with  the  nervous  delicacy  of  nmch  of  the  face,  the  thinness 
of  the  wrist,  and  of  the  long  and  slender  foot  raised  on  the  fender. 
It  was  perhaps  the  great  thickness  and  full  wave  of  the  hair  which 
gave  the  head  its  breadth ;  but  the  effect  was  singular,  and  would 
have  been  heavy  but  for  the  glow  of  the  eyes,  which  balanced  it. 

She  was  thinking,  as  &  fiancee  should,  of  Aldous  and  their  mar- 
riage, which  had  been  fixed  for  the  end  of  February.  Yet  not 
apparently  with  any  rapturous  absorption.  There  was  a  great 
deal  to  plan,  and  her  mind  was  full  of  business.  Who  was  to  look 
after  her  various  village  schemes  while  slie  and  Lady  Winterbourne 
were  away  in  London?  Mary  Harden  had  hardly  brains  enough, 
dear  little  thing  as  she  was.  They  must  find  some  capable  woman 
and  pay  her.  The  Cravens  would  tell  her,  of  course,  that  she  was 
on  the  high  road  to  the  most  degrading  of  roles  —  the  role  of  Lady 
Bountiful.  But  there  were  Lady  Bountifuls  and  Lady  Bountifuls. 
And  the  role  itself  was  inevitable.  It  all  depended  upon  how  it  was 
managed  —  in  the  interest  of  what  ideas. 

She  must  somehow  renew  her  relations  with  the  Cravens  in  town. 
It  would  certainly  be  in  her  power  now  to  help  them  and  their  proj- 
ects forward  a  little.  Of  course  they  would  distrust  her,  but  that 
she  would  get  over. 

All  the  time  she  was  listening  mechanically  for  the  hall  door 
bell,  which,  however,  across  the  distances  of  the  great  rambling 
house  it  was  not  easy  to  hear.  Their  coming  guest  was  not  much 
in  her  mind.     She  tacitly  assumed  that  her  father  would  look  after 


140  MARCELLA  book  ii 

him.  On  the  two  or  three  occasions  when  they  had  met  during  the 
last  three  months,  including  his  luncheon  at  Mellor  on  the  day 
after  her  engagement,  her  thoughts  had  been  too  full  to  allow  her 
to  take  much  notice  of  him  —  picturesque  and  amusing  as  he 
seemed  to  be.  Of  late  he  had  not  been  much  in  the  neighbour- 
hood. There  had  been  a  slack  time  for  both  candidates,  which  was 
now  to  give  way  to  a  fresh  period  of  hard  canvassing  in  view  of  the 
election  which  everybody  expected  at  the  end  of  February. 

But  Aldous  was  to  bring  Edward  Hallin !  That  interested  her. 
She  felt  an  intense  curiosity  to  see  and  know  Hallin,  coupled  with 
a  certain  nei'vousness.  The  impression  she  might  be  able  to  make 
on  him  would  be  in  some  sense  an  earnest  of  her  future. 

Suddenly,  something  undefinable  —  a  slight  sound,  a  current  of 
air  —  made  her  turn  her  head.  To  her  amazement  she  saw  a  young 
man  in  the  doorway  looking  at  her  with  smiling  eyes,  and  quietly 
drawing  off  his  gloves. 

She  sprang  up  with  a  feeling  of  annoyance. 

"  Mr.  Wharton  !  " 

"Oh  !  —  must  you?"  —  he  said,  with  a  movement  of  one  hand, 
as  though  to  stop  her.  "  Couldn't  you  stay  like  that  ?  At  first  I 
thought  there  was  nobody  in  the  room.  Your  servant  is  grappling 
with  my  bags,  which  are  as  the  sand  of  the  sea  for  multitude,  so  I 
wandered  in  by  myself.  Then  I  saw  you  —  and  the  fire  —  and  the 
room.  It  was  like  a  bit  of  nmsic.  It  was  mere  wanton  waste  to 
interrupt  it." 

Marcella  flushed,  as  she  very  stiffly  shook  hands  with  him. 

"  I  did  not  hear  the  front  door,"  she  said  coldly.  "  My  mother 
will  be  here  directly.     May  I  give  you  some  tea  ?  " 

"  Thanks.  No,  I  knew  you  did  not  hear  me.  That  delighted 
me.  It  showed  what  charming  things  there  are  in  the  world  that 
have  no  spectators!  —  What  a  delicious  place  this  is!  —  what  a 
heavenly  old  place  —  especially  in  these  half  lights  !  There  was  a 
raw  sun  when  I  was  here  before,  but  now — " 

He  stood  in  front  of  the  fire,  looking  round  the  great  room,  and 
at  the  few  small  lamps  making  their  scanty  light  amid  the  flame-lit 
darkness.  His  hands  were  loosely  crossed  behind  his  back,  and  his 
boyish  face,  in  its  setting  of  curls,  shone  with  content  and  self- 
possession. 

"Well,"  said  Marcella,  bluntly,  "I  should  prefer  a  little  more 
light  to  live  by.  Perhaps,  when  you  have  fallen  downstairs  here 
in  the  dark  as  often  as  I  have,  you  m9,y  too." 

He  laughed. 

"  But  how  much  better,  after  all  —  don't  you  think  so  ?  —  to 
have  too  little  of  anything  than  too  much  !  " 

He  flung  himself  into  a  chair  beside  the  tea-table,  looking  up 


CHAP,  n  MARCELLA  141 

with  gay  interrogation  as  Marcella  handed  him  his  cup.  She  was 
a  good  deal  surprised  by  him.  On  the  few  occasions  of  their  pre- 
vious meetings,  these  bright  eyes,  and  this  pronounced  manner,  had 
been  —  at  any  rate  as  towards  herself  —  much  less  free  and  evident. 
She  began  to  recover  from  the  start  he  had  given  her,  and  to  study 
him  with  a  half-unwilling  curiosity. 

"Then  IMellor  will  please  you,"  she  said  drily,  in  answer  to  his 
remark,  carrying  her  own  tea  meanwhile  to  a  chair  on  the  other 
side  of  the  fire.  "  My  father  never  bought  anything  —  my  father 
can't.  I  believe  we  have  chairs  enough  to  sit  down  upon  — but  we 
have  no  curtains  to  half  the  windows.    Can  I  give  you  anything  ?  " 

For  he  had  risen,  and  was  looking  over  the  tea-tray. 

"  Oh  !  but  1  must,"  he  said  discontentedly.  "  I  must  have  enough 
sugar  in  my  tea  !  " 

"  I  gave  you  more  than  the  average,"  she  said,  with  a  sudden 
little  lea,p  of  laughter,  as  she  came  to  his  aid.  "Do  all  your  prin- 
ciples break  down  like  this?  I  was  going  to  suggest  that  you 
might  like  some  of  that  fire  taken  away  ?  "  And  she  pointed  to 
the  pile  of  blazing  logs  which  now  filled  up  the  great  chimney. 

"  That  fire  !  "  he  said,  shivering,  and  moving  up  to  it.  "  Have 
you  any  idea  what  sort  of  a  wind  you  keep  up  here  on  these  hills 
on  a  night  like  this  ?  And  to  think  that  in  this  weather,  with  a 
barometer  that  laughs  in  your  face  when  you  try  to  move  it,  I  have 
three  meetings  to-morrow  night !  " 

"  When  one  loves  the  '  People,'  with  a  large  P,"  said  Marcella, 
"  one  mustn't  mind  winds." 

He  flashed  a  smile  at  her,  answering  to  the  sparkle  of  her  look, 
then  applied  himself  to  his  tea  and  toasted  bun  again,  with  the 
dainty  deliberation  of  one  enjoying  every  sip  and  bite. 

"No;  but  if  only  the  People  didn't  live  so  far  apart.  Some 
murderous  person  wanted  them  to  have  only  one  neck.  I  want 
them  to  have  only  one  ear.  Only  then  unfortunately  everybody 
would  speak  well  —  which  would  bring  things  round  to  dulness 
again.  Does  Mr.  Raeburn  make  you  think  very  bad  things  of  me, 
Miss  Boyce  ?  " 

He  bent  forward  to  her  as  he  spoke,  his  blue  eyes  all  candour 
and  mirth. 

Marcella  started. 

"  How  can  he?"  she  said  abruptly.     "  I  am  not  a  Conservative." 

"  Not  a  Conservative?  "  he  said  joyously.  "  Oh  !  but  impossible  ! 
Does  that  mean  that  you  ever  read  my  poor  little  speeches  ?  " 

He  pointed  to  the  local  newspaper,  freshly  cut,  which  lay  on  a 
table  at  Marcella's  elbow. 

"Sometimes  — "  said  Marcella,  embarrassed.  "There  is  so 
little  time." 


142  MARCELLA  book  ii 

In  truth  she  had  hardly  given  his  candidature  a  thought  since 
the  day  Aldous  proposed  to  her.  She  had  been  far  too  much  taken 
up  with  her  own  prospects,  with  Lady  Winterbourne's  friendship, 
and  her  village  schemes. 

He  laughed. 

"  Of  course  there  is.    When  is  the  great  event  to  be  ?  " 

"  I  didn't  mean  that,"  said  Marcella,  stiffly.  "  Lady  Winter- 
bourne  and  1  have  been  trying  to  start  some  village  workshops. 
We  have  been  working  and  talking,  and  writing,  morning,  noon, 
and  night." 

"Oh!  I  know  —  yes,  I  heard  of  it.  And  you  really  think  any- 
thing is  going  to  come  out  of  finicking  little  schemes  of  that  sort?  " 

His  dry  change  of  tone  drew  a  quick  look  from  her.  The  fresh- 
coloured  face  was  transformed.  In  place  of  easy  mirth  and  mis- 
chief, she  read  an  acute  and  half  contemptuous  attention. 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  she  said  slowly,  after  a  pause. 
"Or  rather  —  I  do  know  quite  well.  You  told  papa  —  didn't  you? 
—  and  Mr.  Haeburn  says  that  you  are  a  Socialist  —  not  half-and- 
half,  as  all  the  w^orld  is,  but  the  real  thing?  And  of  course  you 
want  great  changes  :  you  don't  like  anything  that  might  strengthen 
the  upper  class  with  the  people.  But  that  is  nonsense.  You 
can't  get  the  changes  for  a  long  long  time.  And,  meanwhile, 
people  must  be  clothed  and  fed  and  kept  alive." 

She  lay  back  in  her  high-backed  chair  and  looked  at  him  de- 
fiantly.    His  lip  twitched,  but  he  kept  his  gravity. 

"  You  would  be  much  better  employed  in  forming  a  branch  of 
the  Agricultural  Union,"  he  said  decidedly. 

"  What  is  the  good  of  playing  Lady  Bountiful  to  a  decayed 
industry  ?  All  that  is  childish  ;  we  want  the  means  of  revolution. 
The  people  who  are  for  reform  shouldn't  waste  money  and  time 
on  fads." 

"  I  understand  all  that,"  she  said  scornfully,  her  quick  breath 
rising  and  falling.  "  Perhaps  you  don't  know  that  I  was  a 
memlDer  of  the  Venturist  Society  in  London?  What  you  say 
doesn't  sound  very  new  to  me !  " 

His  seriousness  disappeared  in  laughter.  He  hastily  put  down 
his  cup  and,  stepping  over  to  her,  held  out  his  hand. 

"You  a  Venturist?  So  am  I.  Joy!  AVon't'you  shake  hands 
with  me,  as  comrades  should  ?  We  are  a  very  mixed  set  of  people, 
you  know,  and  between  ourselves  I  don't  know  that  we  are  com- 
ing to  much.  But  we  can  make  an  alderman  dream  of  the  guillo- 
tine—  that  is  always  something.  Oh!  but  now  we  can  talk  on 
quite  a  new  footing  !  " 

She  had  given  him  her  hand  for  an  instant,  withdrawing  it 
with  shy  rapidity,  and  he  had  thrown  himself  into  a  chair  again, 


CHAP.  11  MARCELLA  143 

with  his  arms  behind  his  head,  and  the  aii*  of  one  reflecting  hap- 
pily on  a  changed  situation.  "  Quite  a  new  footing,"  he  repeated 
thoughtfully.  "  But  it  is  —  a  little  surjirising.  What  does  — 
what  does  Mr.  Raeburn  say  to  it  ?  " 

"  Nothing !  He  cares  just  as  much  about  the  poor  as  you  or  I, 
please  understand!  He  doesn't  choose  my  way  —  but  he  won't 
interfere  with  it." 

"  Ah  !  that  is  like  him  —  like  Aldous." 

Marcella  started. 

"  You  don't  mind  my  calling  him  by  his  Christian  name  some- 
times ?  It  drops  out.  We  used  to  meet  as  boys  together  at  the 
Levens'.  The  Levens  are  my  cousins.  He  was  a  big  boy,  and  I 
was  a  little  one.  But  he  didn't  like  me.  You  see  —  I  was  a  little 
beast ! " 

His  air  of  appealing  candour  could  not  have  been  more  engaging. 

"  Yes,  I  fear  I  was  a  little  beast.  And  he  was,  even  then,  and 
always,  'the  good  and  beautiful.'  You  don't  understand  Greek, 
do  you,  Miss  Boyce?  But  he  was  very  good  to  me.  I  got  into  an 
awful  scrape  once.  I  let  out  a  pair  of  eagle  owls  that  used  to  be 
kept  in  the  courtyard  —  Sir  Charles  loved  them  a  great  deal  more 
than  his  babies  —  I  let  them  out  at  night  for  pure  wickedness,  and 
they  came  to  fearful  ends  in  the  park.  I  was  to  have  been  sent 
home  next  day,  in  the  most  unnecessary  and  penal  hurry.  But 
Aldous  interposed  —  said  he  would  look  after  me  for  the  rest  of 
the  holidays." 

"  And  then  you  tormented  him  ?  " 

"Oh  no  !  "  he  said  with  gentle  complacency.  " Oh  no !  I  never 
torment  anybody.  But  one  must  enjoy  oneself  you  know ;  what 
else  can  one  do  ?  Then  afterwards,  when  we  were  older  —  some- 
how I  don't  know  —  but  we  didn't  get  on.  It  is  very  sad — I 
wish  he  thought  better  of  me." 

The  last  words  were  said  with  a  certain  change  of  tone,  and 
sitting  up  he  laid  the  tips  of  his  fingei's  together  on  his  knees  with 
a  little  plaintive  air.  Marcella's  eyes  danced  with  amusement,  but 
she  looked  away  from  him  to  the  fire,  and  would  not  answer. 

"  You  don't  help  me  out.  You  don't  console  me.  It's  unkind 
of  you.  Don't  you  think  it  a  melancholy  fate  to  be  always  admir- 
ing the  people  who  detest  you?  " 

"  Don't  admire  them !  "  she  said  merrily. 

His  eyebrows  lifted.  "  That,'"  he  said  drily,  "  is  disloyal.  I 
call  —  I  call  your  ancestor  over  the  mantelpiece"  —  he  waved  his 
hand  towards  a  blackened  portrait  in  front  of  him  —  "  to  witness, 
that  I  am  all  for  admiring  Mr.  Raeburn,  aiid  you  discourage  it. 
W^ell,  but  now  —  now"  —  he  drew  his  chair  eagerly  towards  hers, 
the  pose  of  a  minute  before  thrown  to  the  winds  —  "  do  let  us 


144  MARCELLA  book  ii 

understand  each  other  a  little  more  before  people  come.  You 
know  I  have  a  labom-  newspaper?" 

She  nodded. 

"  You  read  it  ?  " 

"  Is  it  the  Labour  Clarion  ?     I  take  it  in." 

"  Capital !  "  he  cried.  "  Then  I  know  now  why  T  found  a  copy  in 
the  village  here.     You  lent  it  to  a  man  called  Hurd  ?  " 

"  I  did." 

"  Whose  wife  worships  you  ?  —  whose  good  angel  you  have  been  ? 
Do  I  know  something  about  you,  or  do  I  not?  Well,  now,  are  you 
satisfied  with  that  paper  ?  Can  you  suggest  to  me  means  of  im- 
proving it?  It  wants  some  fresh  blood,  I  think  —  I  must  find  it? 
I  bought  the  thing  last  year,  in  a  moribund  condition,  with  the  old 
staff.  Oh  I  we  will  certainly  take  counsel  together  about  it  —  most 
certainly  !  But  first  —  I  have  been  boasting  of  knowing  something 
about  you  —  but  I  should  like  to  ask  —  do  you  know  anything 
about  me  ?  " 

Both  laughed.     Then  Marcella  tried  to  be  serious. 

"  Well  —  I  —  I  believe  —  you  have  some  land  ?  " 

"  Right !  "  he  nodded  —  "I  am  a  Lincolnshire  landowner.  I 
have  about  five  thousand  acres  —  enough  to  be  tolerably  poor  on 

—  and  enough  to  play  tricks  with.  I  have  a  co-operative  farm,  for 
instance.     At  present  I  have  lent  them  a  goodish  sum  of  money 

—  and  remitted  them  their  first  half-year's  rent.  Not  so  far  a 
paying  speculation.  But  it  will  do  —  some  day.  Meanwhile  the 
estate  wants  money  —  and  my  plans  and  I  want  money  —  badly. 
I  propose  to  make  the  Labour  Clarion  pay —  if  I  can.  That  will 
give  me  more  time  for  speaking  and  organising,  for  what  concerns 
us  —  as  Venturists  —  than  the  Bar." 

"  The  Bar  ? "  she  said,  a  little  mystified,  but  following  every 
word  with  a  fascinated  attention. 

"  I  made  myself  a  barrister  three  years  ago,  to  please  my  ?nother. 
She  thought  I  should  do  better  in  Parliament  —  if  ever  I  got  in. 
Did  you  ever  hear  of  my  mother  ?  " 

Thei'e  was  no  escaping  these  frank,  smiling  questions. 

"  No,"  said  Marcella,  honestly. 

"  Well,  ask  Lord  Maxwell,"  he  said,  laughing.  "  He  and  she 
came  across  each  other  once  or  twice,  when  he  was  Home  Sec- 
retary years  ago,  and  she  was  wild  about  some  woman's  grievance 
or  other.     She  always  maintains  that  she  got  the  better  of  him 

—  no  doubt  he  was  left  with  a  different  impression.  Well  —  my 
mother  —  most  people  thought  her  mad  —  perhaps  she  was  — 
but  then  somehow  —  I  loved  her  !  " 

He  was  still  smiling,  but  at  the  last  words  a  charming  vibration 
crept  into  the  words,  and  his  eyes  sought  her  with  a  young  open 
demand  for  sympathy. 


CHAP.  II  MARCELLA  145 

"Is  that  so  rare?"  she  asked  him,  half  laughing  —  instinc- 
tively defending  her  own  fe'eling  lest  it  should  be  snatched  from 
her  by  any  make-believe. 

"  Yes  —  as  we  loved  each  other  —  it  is  rare.  My  father  died 
when  I  was  ten.  She  would  not  send  me  to  school,  and  I  was 
always  in  her  pocket  —  I  shared  all  her  interests.  She  was  a  wild 
woman  —  but  she  lived,  as  not  one  person  in  twenty  lives." 

Then  he  sighed.  Marcella  was  too  shy  to  imitate  his  readi- 
ness to  ask  questions.  But  she  supposed  that  his  mother  must 
be  dead  —  indeed,  now  vaguely  remembered  to  have  heard 
as  much. 

There  was  a  little  silence. 

"  Please  tell  me,"  she  said  suddenly,  "  why  do  you  attack  my 
straw-plaiting?     Is  a  co-operative  farm  any  less  of  a  stopgap  ?  " 

Instantly  his  face  changed.  He  drew  up  his  chair  again  beside 
her,  as  gay  and  keen-eyed  as  before. 

"  I  can't  ai'gue  it  out  now.  There  is  so  much  to  say.  But  do 
listen  !  I  have  a  meeting  in  the  village  here  next  week  to  preach 
land  nationalisation.  We  mean  to  try  and  form  a  branch  of  the 
Labourers'  Union.     Will  you  come?  " 

Marcella  hesitated. 

"  I  think  so,"  she  said  slowly. 

There  was  a  pause.  Then  she  raised  her  eyes  and  found  his 
fixed  upon  her.  A  sudden  sympathy  —  of  youth,  excitement, 
pleasure  —  seemed  to  rise  between  them.  She  had  a  quick  im- 
pression of  lightness,  grace ;  of  an  open  brow  set  in  curls  ;  of  a 
look  more  intimate,  inquisitive,  commanding,  than  any  she  had 
yet  met. 

"  May  I  speak  to  you,  miss  ?  "  said  a  voice  at  the  door. 

Marcella  rose  hastily.     Her  mother's  maid  was  standing  there. 

She  hurried  across  the  room. 

"  What  is  the  matter.  Deacon  V  " 

"Your  mother  says,  miss,"  said  the  maid,  retreating  into  the 
hall,  "  I  am  to  tell  you  she  can't  come  down.  Your  father  is  ill, 
and  she  has  sent  for  Dr.  Clarke.  But  you  are  please  not  to  go  up. 
Will  you  give  the  gentlemen  their  tea,  and  she  will  come  down 
before  they  go,  if  she  can." 

Marcella  had  turned  pale. 

"  Mayn't  I  go.  Deacon  ?     What  is  it  ?  " 

"It's  a  bad  fit  of  pain,  your  mother  says,  miss.  Nothing  can  be 
done  till  the  doctor  comes.  She  begged  particular  that  you  wouldn't 
go  up,  miss.     She  doesn't  want  any  one  put  out." 

At  the  same  moment  there  was  a  ring  at  the  outer  door. 

"  Oh,  there  is  Aldous,"  cried  Marcella,  with  relief,  and  she  ran 
out  into  the  hall  to  meet  him. 


146  MARCELLA 


CHAPTER  ni 

Aldous  advanced  into  the  inner  hall  at  sight  of  Marcella,  leav- 
ing his  companions  behind  in  the  vestibule  taking  off  their  coats. 
Marcella  ran  to  him. 

"Papa  is  ill !  "  she  said  to  him  hastily.  "Mamma  has  sent  for 
Dr.  Clarke.  She  won't  let  me  go  up,  and  wants  us  to  take  no 
notice  and  have  tea  without  lier." 

"  I  am  so  sorry !  Can  we  do  anything  ?  The  dog-cart  is  here 
with  a  fast  horse.     If  your  messenger  went  on  foot  —  " 

"  Oh,  no !  they  are  sure  to  have  sent  the  boy  on  the  pony.  I 
don't  know  why,  but  I  have  had  a  presentiment  for  a  long  time 
past  that  papa  was  going  to  be  ill." 

She  looked  white  and  excited.  She  had  turned  back  to  the 
drawing-room,  forgetting  the  other  guests,  he  walking  beside  her. 
As  they  passed  along  the  dim  hall,  Aldous  had  her  hand  close  in 
his,  and  when  they  passed  under  an  archway  at  the  further  end  he 
stooped  suddenly  in  the  shadows  and  kissed  the  hand.  Touch  — 
kiss  —  had  the  clinging,  the  intensity  of  passion.  They  were  the 
expression  of  all  that  had  lain  vibrating  at  the  man's  inmost  heart 
during  the  dark  drive,  while  he  had  been  chatting  with  his  two 
companions. 

"  My  darling !  I  hope  not.  Would  you  rather  not  see  strangers? 
Shall  I  send  Hallin  and  young  Leven  away?  They  would  under- 
stand at  once." 

"Oh,  no!  Mr.  Wharton  is  here  anyway — staying.  Where  is 
Mr.  Hallin?     I  had  forgotten  him." 

Aldous  turned  and  called.  Mr.  Hallin  and  young  Frank  Leven, 
divining  something  unusual,  were  looking  at  the  pictures  in  the  hall. 

Edward  Hallin  came  up  and  took  Marcella's  offered  hand.  Each 
looked  at  the  other  with  a  special  attention  and  interest.  "  She 
holds  my  friend's  life  in  her  hands  —  is  she  worthy  of  it?"  was 
naturally  the  question  hanging  suspended  in  the  man's  judgment. 
The  girl's  manner  was  proud  and  shy,  the  manner  of  one  anxious 
to  please,  yet  already,  perhaps,  on  the  defensive. 

Aldous  explained  the  position  of  affairs,  and  Hallin  expressed 
his  sympathy.  He  had  a  singularly  attractive  voice,  the  voice  in- 
deed of  the  orator,  which  can  adapt  itself  with  equal  charm  and 
strength  to  the  most  vai'ious  needs  and  to  any  pitch.  As  he  spoke, 
Marcella  was  conscious  of  a  sudden  impression  that  she  already 
knew  him  and  could  be  herself  with  him  at  once. 

"  Oh,  I  say,"  broke  in  young  Leven,  who  was  standing  behind ; 
"don't  you  be  bothered  with  us,  Miss  Boyce.  Just  send  us  back 
at  once.     I'm  awfully  sorry  1  " 


CHAP.  Ill  MARCELLA  147 

"  No  ;  you  are  to  come  in !  "  she  said,  smiling  through  her  pallor, 
which  was  beginning  to  pass  away,  and  putting  out  her  hand  to 
him  —  the  young  Eton  and  Oxford  athlete,  just  home  for  his 
Christmas  vacation,  was  a  great  favourite  with  her  —  "  You  must 
come  and  have  tea  and  cheer  me  up  by  telling  me  all  the  things 
you  have  killed  this  w6ek.  Is  there  anything  left  alive?  Xou  had 
come  down  to  the  fieldfares,  you  know,  last  Tuesday." 

He  followed  her,  laughing  and  protesting,  and  she  led  the  way 
to  the  drawing-room.  But  as  her  fingers  were  on  the  handle  she 
once  more  caught  sight  of  the  maid,  Deacon,  standing  on  the  stairs, 
and  ran  to  speak  to  her. 

"  He  is  better,"  she  said,  coming  back  with  a  face  of  glad  relief. 
"  The  attack  seems  to  be  passing  off.  Mamma  can't  come  down, 
but  she  begs  that  we  will  all  enjoy  ourselves." 

"  We'll  endeavour,"  said  young  Leven,  rubbing  his  hands,  "  by 
the  help  of  tea.  Miss  Boyce,  will  you  please  tell  Aldous  and  Mr. 
Hallin  not  to  talk  politics  when  they're  taking  me  out  to  a  party. 
They  should  fight  a  man  of  their  own  size.  I'm  all  limp  and  tram- 
pled on,  and  want  you  to  protect  me." 

The  group  moved,  laughing  and  talking,  into  the  drawing-room. 

"  Jirainy  !  "  said  Leven,  stopping  short  behind  Aldous,  who  was 
alone  conscious  of  the  lad's  indignant  astonishment ;  "  what  the 
deuce  is  he  doing  here?" 

For  there  on  the  rug,  with  his  back  to  the  fire,  stood  Wharton, 
surveying  the  party  with  his  usual  smiling  aplomb. 

"  Mr.  Hallin,  do  you  know  Mr.  Wharton  ?  "  said  Marcella. 

"  Mr.  Wharton  and  I  have  met  several  times  on  public  platforms," 
said  Hallin,  holding  out  his  hand,  which  Wharton  took  with  effu- 
sion. Aldous  greeted  him  with  the  impassive  manner,  the  "  three 
finger  "  manner,  which  was  with  him  an  inheritance  —  though  not 
from  his  grandfather — and  did  not  contribute  to  his  popularity  in 
the  neighbourhood.  As  for  young  Leven,  he  barely  nodded  to  the 
Radical  candidate,  and  threw  himself  into  a  chair  as  far  from  the 
fire  as  possible. 

"  Frank  and  I  have  met  before  to-day  !  "  said  Wharton,  laughing. 

"  Yes,  I've  been  trying  to  undo  some  of  your  mischief,"  said  the 
boy,  bluntly.  "  I  foimd  him.  Miss  Boyce,  haranguing  a  lot  of  men 
at  the  dinner-hour  at  Tudley  End  —  one  of  our  villages,  you  know 
—  cramming  them  like  anything  —  all  about  the  game  laws,  and 
our  misdeeds  —  my  father's,  of  course." 

Wharton  raised  a  protesting  hand. 

"  Oh  —  all  very  well !  Of  course  it  was  us  you  meant  I  Well, 
when  he'd  driven  off,  I  got  up  on  a  cart  and  had  my  say.  I  asked 
them  whether  they  didn't  all  come  out  at  our  big  shoots,  and 
whether  they  didn't  have  almost  as  much  fun  as  we  did  —  why  1 


148  MAKCELLA  book  ii 

the  schoolmaster  and  the  postman  come  to  ask  to  carry  cartridges, 
and  everybody  turns  out,  down  to  the  cripples! — whether  they 
didn't  have  rabbits  given  them  all  the  year  round ;  whether  half  of 
them  hadn't  brothers  and  sons  employed  somehow  about  the  game, 
well-paid,  and  well-treated;  whether  any  man-jack  of  them  would 
be  a  ha'porth  better  off  if  there  were  no  game ;  whether  many  of 
them  wouldn't  be  worse  off ;  and  whether  England  wouldn't  be  a 
beastly  dull  place  to  live  in,  if  people  like  him  "  —  he  pointed  to 
Wharton  —  "had  the  governing  of  it!  And  I  brought 'em  all 
round  too.  I  got  them  cheering  and  laughing.  Oh !  I  can  tell 
you  old  Dodgson  '11  have  to  take  me  on.  He  says  he'll  ask  me  to 
speak  for  him  at  several  places.  I'm  not  half  bad,  I  declare  I'm 
not." 

"  I  thought  they  gave  you  a  holiday  task  at  Eton,"  observed 
Wharton,  blandly.    ' 

The  lad  coloured  hotly,  then  bethought  himself  —  radiant :  — 

"  I  left  Eton  last  half,  as  of  course  you  know  quite  well.  But 
if  it  had  only  been  last  Christmas  instead  of  this,  wouldn't  I 
have  scored  —  by  Jove  !  They  gave  us  a  beastly  essay  instead  of 
a  book.  '  Z)em-agogues ! '  I  sat  up  all  night,  and  screwed  out  a 
page  and  a  half.     I'd  have  known  something  about  it  now." 

And  as  he  stood  beside  the  tea-table,  waiting  for  Marcella  to 
entrust  some  tea  to  him  for  distribution,  he  turned  and  made  a 
profound  bow  to  his  candidate  cousin. 

Everybody  joined  in  the  laugh,  led  by  Wharton.  Then  there 
was  a  general  drawing  up  of  chairs,  and  Marcella  applied  herself 
to  making  tea,  helped  by  Aldous.  Wharton  alone  remained  stand- 
ing before  the  fire,  observant  and  apart. 

Hallin,  whose  health  at  this  moment  made  all  exertion,  even 
a  drive,  something  of  a  burden,  sat  a  little  away  from  the  tea- 
table,  resting,  and  glad  to  be  silent.  Yet  all  the  time  he  was 
observing  the  girl  presiding  and  the  man  beside  her  —  his  friend, 
her  lover.  The  moment  had  a  peculiar,  perhaps  a  melancholy 
interest  for  him.  So  close  had  been  the  bond  between  himself 
and  Aldous,  that  the  lover's  communication  of  his  engagement  had 
evoked  in  the  friend  that  sense  —  poignant,  inevitable  —  which  in 
the  realm  of  the  affections  always  waits  on  something  done  and 
finished,  —  a  leaf  turned,  a  chapter  closed.  "  That  sad  word, 
Joy !  "  Hallin  was  alone  and  ill  when  Raeburn's  letter  reached 
him,  and  through  the  following  day  and  night  he  was  haunted  by 
Landor's  phrase,  long  familiar  and  significant  to  him.  His  letter 
to  his  friend,  and  the  letter  to  Miss  Boyce  for  which  Raeburn  had 
asked  him,  had  cost  him  an  invalid's  contribution  of  sleep  and 
ease.  The  girl's  answer  had  seemed  to  him  constrained  and 
young,   though  touched   here  and   there  with  a  certain   fineness 


CHAP.  Ill  MARCELLA  149 

and  lai'geness  of  phrase,  which,  if  it  was  to  be  taken  as  an  index 
of  character,  no  doubt  threw  light  upon  the  matter  so  far  as  Aldous 
was  concerned. 

Her  beauty,  of  which  he  had  heard  much,  now  that  he  was  face 
to  face  with  it,  was  certainly  striking  enough  —  all  the  more  because 
of  its  immaturity,  the  subtlety  and  uncertainty  of  its  promise. 
hmnaturity  —  uncertainty  —  these  words  returned  upon  him  as  he 
observed  her  manner  with  its  occasional  awkwardness,  the  awk- 
wardness which  goes  with  power  not  yet  fully  explored  or  mas- 
tered by  its  possessor.  How  Aldous  hung  upon  her,  following 
every  movement,  anticipating  every  want !  After  a  while  Hallin 
found  himself  half-inclined  to  Mr.  Boyce's  view,  that  men  of  Rae- 
burn's  type  are  never  seen  to  advantage  in  this  stage  —  this  queer 
topsy-turvy  stage  —  of  first  passion.  He  felt  a  certain  impatience, 
a  certain  jealousy  for  his  friend's  dignity.  It  seemed  to  him  too, 
every  now  and  then,  that  she  —  the  girl  —  was  teased  by  all  this 
absorption,  this  deference.  He  was  conscious  of  watching  for 
something  in  her  that  did  not  ajjpear ;  and  a  first  prescience  of 
things  anxious  or  untoward  stirred  in  his  quick  sense. 

"You  may  all  say  what  you  like,  '  said  Marcella,  suddenly,  put- 
ting down  her  cup,  and  letting  her  hand  drop  for  emphasis  on  her 
knee ;  "  but  you  will  never  persuade  me  that  game-preserving 
doesn't  make  life  in  the  country  much  more  difficult,  and  the 
difference  between  classes  much  wider  and  bitterer,  than  they 
need  be." 

The  remark  cut  across  some  rattling  talk  of  Frank  Leven's,  who 
was  in  the  fii'st  flush  of  the  sportsman's  ardour,  and,  though 
by  no  means  without  parts,  could  at  the  present  moment  apply  his 
mind  to  little  else  than  killing  of  one  kind  or  another,  unless  it 
were  to  the  chances  of  keeping  his  odious  cousin  out  of  Parlia- 
ment. 

Leven  stared.  Miss  Boyce's  speech  seemed  to  him  to  have  no 
sort  of  a  propos.  Aldous  looked  down  upon  her  as  he  stood  beside 
her,  smiling. 

"  I  wish  you  didn't  trouble  yourself  so  much  about  it,"  he  said. 

"How  can  I  help  it?"  she  answered  quickly;  and  then  flushed, 
like  one  who  has  drawn  attention  indiscreetly  to  their  own  per- 
sonal situation. 

"  Trouble  herself  ! "  echoed  young  Leven.  "  Now,  look  here 
Miss  Boyce,  will  you  come  for  a  walk  with  me  ?  I'll  convince  you, 
as  I  convinced  those  fellows  over  there.  I  know  I  could,  and  you 
won't  give  me  the  chance ;  it's  too  bad." 

"  Oh,  you !  "  she  said,  with  a  little  shrug  ;  '!  what  do  you  know 
about  it  ?  One  might  as  well  consult  a  gambler  about  gambling 
when  he  is  in  the  middle  of  his  first  rush  of   luck.     I  have  ten 


150  MARCELLA  book  ii 

times  more  right  to  an  opinion  than  you  have.  I  can  keep  my 
head  cool,  and  notice  a  hundred  things  that  you  would  never  see. 
I  come  fresh  into  your  country  life,  and  the  first  thing  that  strikes 
me  is  that  the  whole  machinery  of  law  and  order  seems  to  exist  for 
nothing  in  the  world  but  to  protect  your  pheasants  !  There  are 
policemen  —  to  catch  poachers ;  there  are  magistrates  —  to  try  them. 
To  judge  from  the  newspapers,  at  least,  they  have  nothing  else  to 
do.  And  if  you  follow  your  sporting  instincts,  you  are  a  very  fine 
fellow,  and  everybody  admires  you.  But  if  a  shoemaker's  son  in 
Mellor  follows  his,  he  is  a  villain  and  a  thief,  and  the  policeman 
and  the  magistrate  make  for  him  at  once." 

"  But  I  don't  steal  his  chickens  !  "  cried  the  lad,  choking  with 
arguments  and  exasperation  ;  "  and  why  should  he  steal  ray  pheas- 
ants ?  I  paid  for  the  eggs,  I  paid  for  the  hens  to  sit  on  'em,  I  paid 
for  the  coops  to  rear  them  in,  I  paid  the  men  to  w^atch  them,  I  paid 
for  the  barley  to  feed  them  with  :  why  is  he  to  be  allowed  to  take 
my  property,  and  I  am  to  be  sent  to  jail  if  I  take  his  ?  " 

"  Property ! "  said  Marcella,  scornfully.  "  You  can't  settle  every- 
thing nowadays  by  that  big  word.  We  are  coming  to  put  the 
public  good  before  property.  If  the  nation  should  decide  to  curtail 
yom-  '  right,'  as  you  call  it,  in  the  general  interest,  it  will  do  it,  and 
you  will  be  left  to  scream." 

She  had  flung  her  arm  round  the  back  of  her  chair,  and  all  her 
lithe  young  frame  was  tense  with  an  eagerness,  nay,  an  excitement, 
which  drew  Hallin's  attention.  It  was  more  than  was  warranted 
by  the  conversation,  he  thought. 

"  AVell,  if  you  think  the  abolition  of  game-preserving  would  be 
popular  in  the  country.  Miss  Boyce,  I'm  certain  you  make  a 
precious  mistake,"  cried  Leven.  "  Why,  even  you  don't  think  it 
Would  be,  do  you,  Mr.  Hallin  ?  "  he  said,  appealing  at  random  in 
his  disgust. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Hallin,  with  his  quiet  smile.  "  I  rather 
think,  on  the  whole,  it  would  be.  The  farmers  put  up  with  it, 
but  a  great  many  of  them  don't  like  it.  Things  are  mended 
since  the  Ground  Game  Act,  but  there  are  a  good  many  grievances 
still  left." 

"  I  should  think  there  are !  "  said  Marcella,  eagerly,  bending 
forward  to  him.  "  I  was  talking  to  one  of  our  farmers  the  other 
day  whose  land  goes  up  to  the  edge  of  Lord  Winterbourne's  woods. 
'  They  don't  keep  their  pheasants,  miss,'  he  said.  '  /  do.  I  and 
my  corn.  If  I  didn't  send  a  man  up  half-past  five  in  the  morning, 
when  the  ears  begin  to  fill,  there'd  be  nothing  left  for  us.'  '  Why 
don't  you  complain  to  the  agent  V '  I  said.  '  Complain  I  Lor' 
bless  you,  miss,  you  may  complain  till  you're  black  in  the  face. 
I've  alius  found  —  an'  I've  been   here,  man   and   boy,  thii"ty-two 


CHAP,  in  MARCELLA  161 

year — as  how  Winterhournes  generally  best  it.'  There  you  have  the 
whole  thmg  m  a  nutshell.    It's  a  tyranny  —  a  tyranny  of  the  rich." 

Flushed  and  sarcastic,  she  looked  at  Frank  Leven ;  but  liallin 
had  an  uncomfortable  feeling  that  the  sarcasm  was  not  all  meant 
for  him.  Aldous  was  sitting  with  his  hands  on  his  knees,  and 
his  head  bent  forward  a  little.  'Once,  as  the  talk  ran  on,"  Ilallin 
saw  him  raise  his  grey  eyes  to  the  girl  beside  him,  who  certainly 
did  not  notice  it,  and  was  not  thinking  of  him.  There  was  a 
curious  pain  and  perplexity  in  the  expression,  but  something  else 
too  —  a  hunger,  a  dependence,  a  yearning,  that  for  an  instant 
gripped  the  friend's  heart. 

"  Well,  I  know  Aldous  doesn't  agree  with  you.  Miss  Boyce," 
cried  Leven,  looking  about  him  in  his  indignation  for  some  argu- 
ment that  should  be  final.  "You  don't,  do  you,  Aldous?  You 
don't  think  the  counti-y  would  be  the  better,  if  we  could  do  away 
with  game  to-morrow  ?  " 

"  No  more  than  I  think  it  would  be  the  better,"  said  Aldous, 
quietly,  "if  we  could  do  away  with  gold  plate  and  false  hair 
to-morrow.  There  would  be  too  many  hungry  goldsmiths  and 
wig-makers  on  the  streets." 

Marcella  turned  to  him,  half  defiant,  half  softened. 

"  Of  course,  your  point  lies  in  to-morroio,"  she  said.  "  I  accept 
that.  We  can't  carry  reform  by  starving  innocent  people.  But 
the  question  is,  what  are  we  to  work  towards  ?  Mayn't  we  regard 
the  game  laws  as  one  of  the  obvious  crying  abuses  to  be  attacked 
first  —  in  the  great  campaign! — the  campaign  which  is  to  bring 
liberty  and  self-respect  back  to  the  countiy  districts,  and  make 
the  labourer  feel  himself  as  much  of  a  man  as  the  squire?" 

"What  a  head!  What  an  attitude!"  thought  Hallin,  half 
repelled,  half  fascinated.  "But  a  girl  that  can  talk  politics  — 
hostile  politics  — to  her  lover,  and  mean  them  too  —  or  am  I  inex- 
perienced ? —  and  is  it  merely  that  she  is  so  much  interested  in 
him  that  she  wants  to  be  quarrelling  with  him  ?  " 

Aldous  looked  up.  "  I  am  not  sure,'"  he  said,  answering  her. 
"  That  is  always  my  difficulty,  you  know,"  and  he  smiled  at  her. 
"  Game-preserving  is  not  to  me  personally  an  attractive  form  of 
private  property,  but  it  seems  to  me  bound  up  with  other  forms, 
and  I  want  to  see  where  the  attack  is  going  to  lead  me.  But  I 
would  protect  your  farmer  —  mind  ! — as  zealously  as  you." 

Hallin  caught  the  impatient  quiver  of  the  girl's  lip.  The  tea  had 
just  been  taken  away,  and  Marcella  had  gone  to  sit  upon  an  old 
sofa  near  the  fire,  whither  Aldous  had  followed  her.  Wharton, 
who  had  so  far  said  nothing,  had  left  his  post  of  observation  on  the 
hearth-rug,  and  was  sittuig  under  the  lamp  balancing  a  paper-knife 
with  great  attention  on  two  fingers.     In  the  half  light  Hallin  by 


152  MARCELLA  book  ii 

chance  saw  a  movement  of  Raeburn's  hand  towards  Marcella's, 
which  lay  hidden  among  the  folds  of  her  dress —  quick  resistance 
on  her  part,  then  acquiescence.  He  felt  a  sudden  pleasure  in  his 
friend's  small  triumph. 

"  Aldous  and  I  have  worn  these  things  threadbare  many  a  time," 
he  said,  addressing  his  hostess.  "You  don't  know  how  kind  he  is 
to  my  dreams.  I  am  no  sportsman  and  have  no  landowning  rela- 
tions, so  he  ought  to  bid  me  hold  my  tongue.  But  he  lets  me  rave. 
To  me  the  simple  fact  is  that  game-preserning  creates  crime.  Agri- 
cultural life  is  naturally  simpler  —  might  be,  it  always  seems  to  me, 
so  much  more  easily  moralised  and  fraternised  than  the  industrial 
form.  And  you  split  it  up  and  poison  it  all  by  the  emphasis  laid 
on  this  class  pleasure.  It  is  a  natural  pleasure,  you  say.  Perhaps 
it  is  —  the  survival,  perhaps,  of  some  primitive  instinct  in  our  north- 
ern blood  —  but,  if  so,  why  should  it  be  impossible  for  the  rich  to 
share  it  with  the  poor  ?  I  have  little  plans  —  dreams.  I  throw  them 
out  sometimes  to  catch  Aldous,  but  he  hardly  rises  to  them !  " 

"  Oh !  I  say,"  broke  in  Frank  Leven,  who  could  really  bear  it  no 
longer.  "Now  look  here.  Miss  Boyce,  —  what  do  you  think  Mr. 
Hallin  wants?  It  is  just  sheer  lunacy  —  it  really  is — though  I 
know  I'm  impertinent,  and  he's  a  great  man.  But  I  do  declare  he 
wants  Aldous  to  give  up  a  big  common  there  is  —  oh !  over  beyond 
Girtstone,  down  in  the  plain  —  on  Lord  Maxwell's  estate,  and  make 
a  labourers'  shoot  of  it !  Now,  I  ask  you  !  And  he  vows  he  doesn't 
see  why  they  shouldn't  rear  pheasants  if  they  choose  to  club  and 
pay  for  it.  Well,  I  will  say  that  much  for  him,  Aldous  didn't  see 
his  way  to  that,  though  he  isn't  the  kind  of  Conservative  /  want  to 
see  in  Parliament  by  a  long  way.  Besides,  it's  such  stuff !  They 
say  sport  brutalises  us,  and  then  they  want  to  go  and  contaminate 
the  labourer.  But  we  won't  take  the  responsibility.  We've  got 
our  own  vices,  and  we'll  stick  to  them ;  we're  used  to  them ;  but 
we  won't  hand  them  on :  we'd  scorn  the  action." 

The  flushed  young  barbarian,  driven  to  bay,  was  not  to  be  resisted. 
Marcella  laughed  heartily,  and  Hallin  laid  an  affectionate  hand  on 
the  boy's  shoulder,  patting  him  as  though  he  were  a  restive  horse. 

"Yes,  I  remember  I  was  puzzled  as  to  the  details  of  Hallin's 
scheme,"  said  Aldous,  his  mouth  twitching.  "  I  wanted  to  know 
who  was  to  pay  for  the  licences ;  how  game  enough  for  the  number 
of  applicants  was  to  be  got  without  pi-eserving;  and  how  men 
earning  twelve  or  fourteen  shillings  a  week  were  to  pay  a  keeper. 
Then  I  asked  a  clergyman  who  has  a  living  near  this  common 
what  he  thought  would  be  the  end  of  it.  '  Well,'  he  said,  '  the  first 
day  they'd  shoot  every  animal  on  the  place ;  the  second  day  they'd 
shoot  each  other.  Universal  carnage  —  I  should  say  that  would  be 
about  the  end  of  it.'     These  were  trifles,  of  course  —  details." 


CHAP.  Ill  MARCELLA  153 

Hallin  shook  his  head  serenely. 

"I  still  maintain,"  he  said,  "that  a  little  practical  ingenuity 
might  have  found  a  way." 

"  And  I  will  support  you,"  said  Wharton,  laying  down  the  paper- 
knife  and  bending  over  to  Hallin,  "with  good  reason.  For  three 
years  and  a  few  months  just  such  an  idea  as  you  describe  has  been 
carried  out  on  my  own  estate,  and  it  has  not  worked  badly  at  all." 

"  There  !  "  cried  Marcella.  "  There  !  I  knew  something  could 
be  done,  if  there  was  a  will.     I  have  always  felt  it." 

She  half  turned  to  Aldous,  then  bent  forward  instead  as  though 
listening  eagerly  for  what  more  Wharton  might  say,  her  face  all 
alive,  and  eloquent. 

"Of  course,  there  was  nothing  to  shoot!"  exclaimed  Frank 
Leven. 

"  On  the  contrary,"  said  Wharton,  smiling,  "  we  are  in  the  mid- 
dle of  a  famous  partridge  country." 

"  How  your  neighbours  must  dote  on  you  !  "  cried  the  boy.  But 
Wharton  took  no  notice. 

"And  my  father  preserved  strictly,"  he  went  on.  "It  is  quite  a 
simple  story.  When  I  inherited,  three  years  ago,  I  thought  the 
whole  thing  detestable,  and  determined  I  wouldn't  be  responsible 
for  keeping  it  up.  So  I  called  the  estate  together  —  farmers  and 
labourers  —  and  we  worked  out  a  plan.  There  are  keepers,  but 
they  are  the  estate  servants,  not  mine.  Everybody  has  his  turn 
according  to  the  rules  —  I  and  my  friends  along  with  the  rest.  Not 
everybody  can  shoot  every  year,  but  everybody  gets  his  chance, 
and,  moreover,  a  certain  percentage  of  all  the  game  killed  is  public 
property,  and  is  distributed  every  year  according  to  a  regular 
order." 

"Who  pays  the  keepers?"  interrupted  Leven. 

"I  do,"  said  Wharton,  smiling  again.  "  Mayn't  I  —  for  the  pres- 
ent—  do  what  I  will  with  mine  own?  I  return  in  their  wages  some 
of  my  ill-gotten  gains  as  a  landowner.  It  is  all  makeshift,  of 
course." 

"I  understand!"  exclaimed  Marcella,  nodding  to  him  —  "you 
could  not  be  a  Venturist  and  keep  up  game-preserving?  " 

Wharton  met  her  bright  eye  with  a  half  deprecating,  reserved 
air. 

"  You  are  right,  of  course,"  he  said  drily.  "  For  a  Socialist  to 
be  letting  his  keepers  run  in  a  man  earning  twelve  shillings  a 
week  for  knocking  over  a  rabbit  would  have  been  a  little  strong. 
No  one  can  be  consistent  in  my  position  —  in  any  landowner's  posi- 
tion—  it  is  impossible  ;  still,  thank  Heaven,  one  can  deal  with  the 
most  glaring  matters.  As  Mr.  Raeburn  said,  however,  all  this 
game  business  is,  of  course,  a  mere  incident  of  the  general  land 


154  MARCELLA  book  ii 

and  property  system,  as  you  will  hear  me  expound  when  you  come 
to  that  meeting  you  promised  me  to  honour." 

He  stooped  forward,  scanning  her  with  smiling  deference.  Mar- 
cella  felt  the  man's  hand  that  held  her  own  suddenly  tighten  an 
instant.  Then  Aldous  released  her,  and  rising  walked  towards 
the  fire. 

"  You're  not  going  to  one  of  his  meetings,  Miss  Boyce  1 "  cried 
Frank,  in  angry  incredulity. 

Marcella  hesitated  an  instant,  half  angry  with  Wharton.  Then 
she  reddened  and  threw  back  her  dark  head  with  the  passionate 
gesture  Hallin  had  already  noticed  as  characteristic. 

" Mayn't  I  go  where  I  belong?"  she  said  —  "where  my  convic- 
tions lead  me  ?  " 

There  was  a  moment's  awkward  silence.     Then  Hallin  got  up. 

"  Miss  Boyce,  may  we  see  the  house  ?  Aldous  has  told  me 
much  of  it." 

Presently,  in  the  midst  of  their  straggling  progress  through  the 
half-furnished  rooms  of  the  garden  front,  preceded  by  the  shy  foot- 
man carrying  a  lamp,  which  served  for  little  more  than  to  make 
darkness  visible,  Marcella  found  herself  left  behind  with  Aldous. 
As  soon  as  she  felt  that  they  were  alone,  she  realised  a  jar  between 
herself  and  him.  His  manner  was  much  as  usual,  but  there 
was  an  underlying  effort  and  difficulty  which  her  sensitiveness 
caught  at  once.  A  sudden  wave  of  girlish  trouble  —  remorse 
—  swept  over  her.  In  her  impulsiveness  she  moved  close  to  him 
as  they  were  passing  through  her  mother's  little  sitting-room,  and 
put  her  hand  on  his  arm. 

"  I  don't  think  I  was  nice  just  now,"  she  said,  stammering.  "  I 
didn't  mean  it.  I  seem  to  be  always  driven  into  opposition  —  into 
a  feeling  of  war  —  when  you  are  so  good  to  me  —  so  much  too  good 
to  me !  " 

Aldous  had  turned  at  her  first  word.  With  a  long  breath,  as  it 
were  of  unspeakable  relief,  he  caught  her  in  his  arms  vehemently, 
passionately.  So  far  she  had  been  very  shrinking  and  maidenly 
with  him  in  their  solitary  moments,  and  he  had  been  all  delicate 
chivahy  and  respect,  tasting  to  the  full  the  exquisiteness  of  each 
fresh  advance  towards  intimacy,  towards  lover's  privilege,  adoi'ing 
her,  perhaps,  all  the  more  for  her  reserve,  her  sudden  flights,  and 
stiffenings.  But  to-night  he  asked  no  leave,  and  in  her  astonish- 
ment she  was  almost  passive. 

"  Oh,  do  let  me  go !  "  she  cried  at  last,  trying  to  disengage  her- 
self completely. 

"No!"  he  said  with  emphasis,  still  holding  her  hand  firmly. 
"  Come  and  sit  down  here.     They  will  look  after  themselves." 


CHAP.  Ill  MAKCELLA  155 

He  put  her,  whether  she  would  or  no,  into  an  armchair  and 
knelt  beside  her. 

"  Did  you  think  it  was  hardly  kind,"  he  said  with  a  quiver  of 
voice  he  could  not  repress,  "  to  let  me  hear  for  the  first  time,  in 
public,  that  you  had  promised  to  go  to  one  of  that  man's  meetings 
after  refusing  again  and  again  to  come  to  any  of  mine  ?  " 

"  Do  you  want  td  forbid  me  to  go  ?  "  she  .said  quickly.  There 
was  a  feeling  in  her  which  would  have'  been  almost  relieved,  for 
the  moment,  if  he  had  said  yes. 

"By  no  means,"  he  said  steadily.  "  That  was  not  our  compact. 
But  —  guess  for  yourself  what  I  want!  Do  you  think"  —  he 
paused  a  moment  —  "do  you  think  I  put  nothing  of  myself  into 
my  public  life  —  into  these  meetings  among  the  people  who  have 
known  me  from  a  boy  ?  Do  you  think  it  is  all  a  convention  — 
that  my  feeling,  my  conscience,  remain  outside  ?  You  can't  think 
that !  But  if  not,  how  can  I  bear  to  live  what  is  to  be  so  large  a 
part  of  my  life  out  of  your  ken  and  sight  ?  I  know  —  I  know  — 
you  warned  me  amply  —  you  can't  agree  with  me.  But  there  is 
much  besides  intellectual  agreement  possible  —  much  that  would 
help  and  teach  us  both  —  if  only  we  are  together  —  not  separated 
—  not  holding  aloof  —  " 

He  stopped,  watching  all  the  changes  of  her  face.  She  was 
gulfed  in  a  deep  wave  of  half-repentant  feeling,  remembering  all 
his  generosity,  his  forbearance,  his  devotion. 

"When  are  you  speaking  next?"  she  half  whispered.  In  the 
dim  light  her  softened  pose,  the  gentle  sudden  relaxation  of  every 
line,  were  an  intoxication. 

"  Next  week  —  Friday  —  at  Gairsly.  Hallin  and  Aunt  Neta 
are  coming." 

"  Will  Miss  Raeburn  take  me  ?  " 

His  grey  eyes  shone  upon  her,  and  he  kissed  her  hand. 

"  Mr.  Hallin  won't  speak  for  you ! "  she  said,  after  the  silence, 
with  a  return  of  mischief. 

"  Don't  be  so  sure  !  He  has  given  me  untold  help  in  the  draft- 
ing of  my  Bill.  If  I  didn't  call  myself  a  Conservative,  he  would 
vote  for  me  to-morrow.  That's  the  absurdity  of  it.  Do  you 
know,  I  hear  them  coming  back?" 

"  One  thing,"  she  said  hastily,  drawing  him  towards  her,  and 
then  holding  him  back,  as  though  shrinking  always  from  the  feel- 
ing she  could  so  readily  evoke.  "I  must  say  it ;  you  oughtn't  to 
give  me  so  much  money,  it  is  too  much.  Suppose  I  use  it  for 
things  you  don't  like?  " 

"  You  won't,"  he  said  gaily. 

She  tried  to  push  the  subject  further,  but  he  would  not 
have  it. 


156  MARCELLA  book  n 

"  I  am  all  for  free  discussion,"  he  said  in  the  same  tone  ;  "  but 
sometimes  debate  must  be  stifled.     I  am  going  to  stifle  it !  " 

And  stooping,  he  kissed  her,  lightly,  tremulously.  His  man- 
ner showed  her  once  more  what  she  was  to  him  —  how  sacred, 
how  beloved.  First  it  touched  and  shook  her ;  then  she  sprang 
up  with  a  sudden  disagreeable  sense  of  moral  disadvantage  — 
inferiority  —  coming  she  knew  not  whence,  and  undoing  for  the 
moment  all  that  buoyant  consciousness  of  playing  the  magnani- 
mous, disinterested  part  which  had  possessed  her  throughout  the 
talk  in  the  drawing-room. 

The  others  reappeared,  headed  by  their  lamp :  Wharton  first, 
scanning  the  two  who  had  lingered  behind,  with  his  curious  eyes, 
so  blue  and  brilliant  under  the  white  forehead  and  the  curls. 

"We  have  been  making  the  wildest  shots  at  your  ancestors. 
Miss  Boyce,"  he  said.  "  Frank  professed  to  know  everything 
about  the  pictures,  and  turned  out  to  know  nothing.  I  shall  ask 
for  some  special  coaching  to-morrow  morning.  May  I  engage  you 
—  ten  o'clock?" 

Marcella  made  some  evasive  answer,  and  they  all  sauntered  back 
to  the  drawing-room. 

"  Shall   you  be  at  work  to-morrow,  Raeburn  ?  "  said  Wharton. 

"Probably,"  said  Aldous,  drily.  Marcella,  struck  by  the  tone, 
looked  back,  and  caught  an  expression  and  bearing  which  were  as 
yet  new  to  her  in  the  speaker.  She  supposed  they  represented  the 
haughtiness  natural  in  the  man  of  birth  and  power  towards  the 
intruder,  who  is  also  the  opponent. 

Instantly  the  combative  critical  mood  returned  upon  her,  and 
the  impulse  to  assert  herself  by  protecting  Wharton.  His  manner 
throughout  the  talk  in  the  drawing-room  had  been,  she  declared  to 
herself,  excellent  —  modest,  and  self-restrained,  comparing  curiously 
with  the  boyish  egotism  and  self-abandonment  he  had  shown  in 
their  tete-a-tete. 

"  Why,  there  is  Mr.  Boyce,"  exclaimed  Wharton,  hurrying  for- 
ward as  they  entered  the  drawing-room. 

There,  indeed,  on  the  sofa  was  the  master  of  the  house,  more 
ghastly  black  and  white  than  ever,  and  prepared  to  claim  to  the 
utmost  the  tragic  pre-eminence  of  illness.  He  shook  hands  coldly 
with  Aldous,  who  asked  after  his  health  with  the  kindly  brevity 
natural  to  the  man  who  wants  no  effusions  for  himself  in  public  or 
personal  matters,  and  concludes  therefore  that  other  people  desire 
none. 

"  You  are  better,  papa?"  said  Marcella,  taking  his  hand. 

"  Certainly,  my  dear — better  for  morphia.  Don't  talk  of  me. 
I  have  got  my  death  warrant,  but  I  hope   I  can  take  it  quietly. 


CHAP.  Ill  MARCELLA  167 

Evelyn,  I  specially  asked  to  have  that  thin  cushion  brought  down 
from  my  dressing-room.  It  is  strange  that  no  one  pays  any  atten- 
tion to  my  wants." 

Mrs.  Boyce,  almost  as  white,  Marcella  now  saw,  as  her  husband, 
moved  forward  from  the  fire,  where  she  had  been  speaking  to 
Hallin,  took  a  cushion  from  a  chair  near,  exactly  similar  to  the 
one  he  missed,  and  changed  his  position  a  little. 

"It  is  JListtlie  feather's  weiglit  of  change  that  makes  the  differ- 
ence, isn't  it?  "  said  Wharton,  softly,  sitting  down  beside  the 
invalid. 

Mr.  Boyce  turned  a  mollified  countenance  upon  the  speaker,  and 
being  now  free  from  pain,  gave  himself  up  to  the  amusement  of 
hearing  his  guest  talk.  Wharton  devoted  himself,  employing  all 
his  best  arts. 

"  Dr.  Clarke  is  not  anxious  about  him,"  Mrs.  Boyce  said  in  a 
low  voice  to  Marcella  as  they  moved  away.  "  He  does  not  think 
the  attack  will  return  for  a  long  while,  and  he  has  given  me  the 
means  of  stopping  it  if  it  does  come  back." 

"  How  tired  you  look  !  "  said  Aldous,  coming  up  to  them,  and 
speaking  in  the  same  undertone.  "Will  you  not  let  Marcella  take 
you  to  rest  ?  " 

He  was  always  deeply,  unreasonably  touched  by  any  sign  of 
stoicism,  of  defied  suffering  in  women.  Mrs.  Boyce  had  proved  it 
many  times  already.  On  the  present  occasion  she  put  his  sympathy 
by,  but  she  lingered  to  talk  with  him.  Hallin  from  a  distance 
noticed  first  of  all  her  tall  thinness  and  fairness,  and  her  wonderful 
dignity  of  carriage ;  then  the  cordiality  of  her  manner  to  her 
future  son-in-law.  Marcella  stood  by  listening,  her  young  shoulders 
somewhat  stifliy  set.  Her  consciousness  of  her  mother's  respect 
and  admiration  for  the  man  she  was  to  marry  was,  oddly  enough, 
never  altogether  pleasant  to  her.  It  brought  with  it  a  certain 
discomfort,  a  certain  wish  to  argue  things  out. 

Hallin  and  Aldous  parted  with  Frank  Leven  at  Mellor  gate,  and 
turned  homeward  together  under  a  starry  heaven  already  whiten- 
ing to  the  coming  moon. 

"  Do  you  know  that  man  W^harton  is  getting  an  extraordinary 
hold  upon  the  London  working  men  ?  "  said  Hallin.  "  I  have  heard 
him  tell  that  story  of  the  game-preserving  before.  He  was  speak- 
ing for  one  of  the  Radical  candidates  at  Hackney,  and  I  happened 
to  be  there.  It  brought  down  the  house.  The  rule  of  your  Social- 
ist aristocrat,  of  your  land-nationalising  landlord,  is  a  very  telling 
one." 

"  And  comparatively  easy,"  said  Aldous,  "  wh-en  you  know  that 
neither  Socialism  nor  land-nationalisation  will  come  in  your  time  !  " 

"  Oh  !  so  you  think  him  altogether  a  windbag?  " 


158  MARCELLA  book  ii 

Aldous  hesitated  and  laughed. 

"  I  have  certainly  no  reason  to  suspect  him  of  principles.  His 
conscience  as  a  boy  was  of  pretty  elastic  stuff." 

"  You  may  be  unfair  to  him,"  said  Hallin,  quickly.  Then,  after 
a  pause  :  "  How  long  is  he  staying  at  Mellor  ?  " 

"About  a  week,  I  believe,"  said  Aldous,  shortly.  "Mr.  Boyce 
has  taken  a  fancy  to  him." 

They  walked  on  in  silence,  and  then  Aldous  turned  to  his  friend 
in  distress. 

"  You  know,  Hallin,  this  wind  is  much  too  cold  for  you.  You 
are  the  most  wilful  of  men.     "Why  would  you  walk  ?  " 

"  Hold  your  tongue,  sir,  and  listen  to  me.  I  think  your  Marcella 
is  beautiful,  and  as  interesting  as  she  is  beautiful.     There  ! " 

Aldous  started,  then  turned  a  grateful  face  upon  him. 

"  You  must  get  to  know  her  well,"  he  said,  but  with  some  con- 
straint. 

"  Of  course.  I  wonder,"  said  Hallin,  musing,  "  whom  she  has 
got  hold  of  among  the  Venturists.  Shall  you  persuade  her  to  come 
out  of  that,  do  you  think,  Aldous?" 

"  No !  "  said  llaeburn,  cheerfully.  "  Her  sympathies  and  convic- 
tions go  with  them." 

Then,  as  they  passed  through  the  village,  he  began  to  talk  of 
quite  other  things  —  college  friends,  a  recent  volume  of  philosophi- 
cal essays,  and  so  on.  Hallin,  accustomed  and  jealously  accus- 
tomed as  he  was  to  be  the  one  person  in  the  world  with  whom 
Raeburn  talked  freely,  would  not  to-night  have  done  or  said  any- 
thing to  force  a  strong  man's  reserve.  But  his  own  mind  was  full 
of  anxiety. 

CHAPTER  IV 

"  I  love  this  dilapidation ! "  said  Wharton,  pausing  for  a  mo- 
ment with  his  back  against  the  door  he  had  just  shut.  "  Only  it 
makes  me  long  to  take  off  my  coat  and  practise  some  honest  trade 
or  other  —  plastering,  or  carpentering,  or  painting.  AVhat  useless 
drones  we  upper  classes  are !  Neither  you  nor  I  could  mend  that 
ceiling  or  patch  this  floor  —  to  save  our  lives." 

They  were  in  the  disused  library.  It  w^as  now  the  last  room 
westwards  of  the  garden  front,  but  in  reality  it  was  part  of  the 
older  house,  and  had  been  only  adapted  and  rebuilt  by  that  eigh- 
teenth-century Marcella  whose  money  had  been  so  gracefully  and 
vainly  lavished  on  giving  dignity  to  her  English  husband's  birth- 
place. The  roof  had  been  raised  and  domed  to  match  the  "  Chinese 
room,"  at  the  expense  of  some  small  rooms  on  the  upper  floor ;  and 
the  windows  and  doors  had  been  suited  to  eighteenth-century  taste. 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  169 

But  the  old  books  in  the  old  latticed  shelves  which  the  Puritan 
founder  of  the  family  had  bought  in  tlie  days  of  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment were  still  there  ;  so  were  the  chairs  in  which  that  worthy  had 
sat  to  read  a  tract  of  Milton's  or  of  Baxter's,  or  the  table  at  which 
he  had  penned  his  letters  to  Hampden  or  Fairfax,  or  to  his  old 
friend  —  on  the  wrong  side  —  Edmund  Verney  the  standard-bearer. 
Only  the  worm-eaten  shelves  were  dropping  from  their  supports, 
and  the  books  lay  in  mouldy  confusion ;  the  roofs  had  great  holes 
and  gaps,  whence  the  laths  hung  dismally  down,  and  bats  came 
flitting  in  the  dusk ;  and  tliere  were  rotten  places  in  the  carpetless 
floor. 

"  I  have  tried  my  best,"  said  Marcella,  dolefully,  stooping  to  look 
at  a  hole  in  the  floor.  "  I  got  a  bit  of  board  and  some  nails,  and 
tried  to  mend  some  of  these  places  myself.  But  I  only  broke 
the  rotten  wood  away ;  and  papa  was  angry,  and  said  I  did  more 
harm  than  good.  I  did  get  a  carpenter  to  mend  some  of  the  chairs ; 
but  one  doesn't  know  where  to  begin.  I  have  cleaned  and  mended 
some  of  the  books,  but  —  " 

She  looked  sadly  round  the  musty,  forlorn  place. 

"  But  not  so  well,  I  am  afraid,  as  any  second-hand  bookseller's 
apprentice  could  have  done  it,"  said  Wharton,  shaking  his  head. 
"  It's  maddening  to  think  what  duffers  we  gentlefolks  are  !  " 

"  Why  do  you  harp  on  that?  "  said  Marcella,  quickly.  She  had 
been  taking  him  over  the  house,  and  was  in  twenty  minds  again  as 
to  whether  and  how  much  she  liked  him. 

"  Because  I  have  been  reading  some  Board  of  Trade  reports 
before  breakfast,"  said  Wharton,  "  on  one  or  two  of  the  Birming- 
ham industries  in  particular.  Goodness !  what  an  amount  of 
knowledge  and  skill  and  resource  these  fellows  have  that  I  go 
about  calling  the  'lower  orders.'  I  wonder  how  long  they  are 
going  to  let  me  rule  over  them  !  " 

"I  suppose  brain-power  and  education  count  for  something 
still?"  said  Marcella,  half  scornfully. 

"I  am  greatly  obliged  to  the  world  for  thinking  so,'"  said 
AVharton  with  emphasis,  "  and  for  thinking  so  about  the  particu- 
lar kind  of  brain-power  I  happen  to  possess,  which  is  the  point. 
The  processes  by  which  a  Birmingham  jeweller  makes  the  wonder- 
ful things  which  we  attribute  to  '  French  taste '  when  we  see  them 
in  the  shops  of  the  Rue  de  la  Paix  are,  of  course,  mere  imbecility 

—  compared  to  my  performances  in  Responsions.  Lucky  for  7ne, 
at  any  rate,  that  the  world  has  decided  it  so.  I  get  a  good  time  of 
it  —  and  the  Birmingham  jeweller  calls  me  'sir.'" 

"  Oh !  the  skilled  labour !  that  can  take  care  of  itself,  and  won't 
go  on  calling  you  '  sir '  much  longer.     But  what  about  the  unskilled 

—  the  people  here  for  instance  —  the  villagers?     We  talk  of  their 


160  MARCELLA  book  ii 

governing  themselves  ;  we  wish  it,  and  work  for  it.  But  which  of 
us  really  believes  that  they  are  fit  for  it,  or  that  they  are  ever  going 
to  get  along  without  our  brain-power  ?  " 

"  No  —  poor  souls !  "  said  Wharton,  with  a  peculiar  vibrating 
emphasis.  " '  By  their  stripes  ive  are  healed,  by  their  death  we  have 
lived.'     Do  you  remember  your  Carlyle?" 

They  had  entered  one  of  the  bays  formed  by  the  bookcases 
which  on  either  side  of  the  room  projected  from  the  wall  at  regu- 
lar intervals,  and  were  standing  by  one  of  the  windows  which 
looked  out  on  the  great  avenue.  Beside  the  window  on  either 
side  hung  a  small  portrait  —  in  the  one  case  of  an  elderly  man  in 
a  wig,  in  the  other  of  a  young,  dark-haired  woman. 

"  Plenty  in  general,  but  nothing  in  particular,"  said  Marcella, 
laughing.     "  Quote." 

He  was  leaning  against  the  angle  formed  by  the  wall  and  the 
bookcase.  The  half-serious,  half-provocative  intensity  of  his  blue 
eyes  under  the  brow  which  drooped  forward  contrasted  with  the 
careless,  well-appointed  ease  of  his  general  attitude  and  dress. 

"  '  Ttoo  men  I  honour,  and  no  third,'  "  he  said,  quoting  in  a  slightly 
dragging,  vibrating  voice  :  " '  First,  the  toilworn  craftsman  that  with 
earth-made  implernent  laboriously  conquers  the  earth  and  makes  her 
man's.  —  Hardly-entreated  Brother  !  For  us  teas  thy  back  .10  bent,  for 
us  were  thy  straight  limbs  and  fingers  so  deforined ;  thou  wert  our  con- 
script, on  whom  the  lot  fell,  and  fighting  our  battles  wert  so  marred.' 
Heavens !  how  the  words  swing !  But  it  is  great  nonsense,  you 
know,  for  you  and  me  —  Yenturists  —  to  be  maundering  like  this. 
Charity  —  benevolence — that  is  all  Carlyle  is  leading  up  to.  He 
merely  wants  the  cash  nexus  supplemented  by  a  few  good  offices. 
But  we  want  something  much  more  unpleasant !  '  Keep  your  sub- 
scriptions—  handover  your  dividends  —  turn  out  of  your  land  — 
and  go  to  work  ! '  Nowadays  society  is  trying  to  get  out  of  doing 
what  we  want,  by  doing  what  Carlyle  wanted." 

"  Do  you  want  it  ?  "  said  Marcella. 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  said,  laughing.    "  It  won't  come  in  our  time." 

Her  lip  showed  her  scorn. 

"  That's  what  we  all  think.  Meanwhile  you  will  perhaps  admit 
that  a  little  charity  greases  the  wheels." 

^'■You  must,  because  you  are  a  woman;  and  women  are  made 
for  charity  —  and  aristocracy." 

"  Do  you  suppose  you  know  so  much  about  women?  "  she  asked 
him,  rather  hotly.  "  I  notice  it  is  always  the  assumption  of  the 
people  who  make  most  mistakes." 

"  Oh !  I  know  enough  to  steer  by ! "  he  said,  smiling,  with  a 
little  inclination  of  his  curly  head,  as  though  to  propitiate  her. 
"  How  like  you  are  to  that  portrait !  " 


CHAP.  IV  MAKCELLA  161 

Marcella  started,  and  saw  that  he  was  pointing  to  the  woman's 
poi'trait  beside  the  window  —  looking  from  it  to  his  hostess  with  a 
close  considering  eye. 

"That  was  an  ancestress  of  mine,"  she  said  coldly,  "an  Italian 
lady.  She  was  rich  and  musical.  Her  money  built  these  rooms 
along  the  garden,  and  these  are  her  music  books." 

She  showed  him  that  the  shelves  against  which  she  was  leaning 
were  full  of  old  music. 

"  Italian  !  "  he  said,  lifting  his  eyebrows.  "  Ah,  that  explains. 
Do  you  know  —  that  you  have  all  the  qualities  of  a  leader!"  — 
and  he  moved  away  a  yard  from  her,  studying  her  —  "  mixed  blood 
—  one  must  always  have  that  to  fire  and  fuse  the  English  paste  — 
and  then  —  but  no!  that  won't  do  —  I  should  offend  you." 

Her  first  instinct  was  one  of  annoyance  —  a  wish  to  send  him 
about  his  business,  or  rather  to  return  him  to  her  mother  who 
would  certainly  keep  him  in  order.  Instead,  however,  she  found 
herself  saying,  as  she  looked  carelessly  out  of  window  — 

"  Oil !  go  on." 

"  Well,  then  "  —  he  drew  himself  up  suddenly  and  wheeled 
round  upon  her  —  "you  have  the  gift  of  compromise.  That  is 
invaluable  —  that  will  take  you  far." 

"  Thank  you  !  "  she  said.  "  Thank  you  !  I  know  what  that 
means  —  from  a  Venturist.  You  think  me  a  mean  insincere 
person ! " 

He  started,  then  recovered  himself  and  came  to  lean  against  the 
bookshelves  beside  her. 

"  I  mean  nothing  of  the  sort,'*  he  said,  in  quite  a  different 
manner,  with  a  sort  of  gentle  and  personal  emphasis.  "  But  — 
may  I  explain  myself,  Miss  Boyce,  in  a  room  with  a  fii'e  ?  I  can 
see  you  shi\tering  under  your  fur." 

For  the  frost  still  reigned  supi'eme  outside,  and  the  white  grass 
and  ti'ees  thi-ew  chill  reflected  lights  into  the  forsaken  library. 
Marcella  controlled  a  pulse  of  excitement  that  had  begun  to  beat 
in  her,  admitted  that  it  was  certainly  cold,  and  led  the  way  through 
a  side  door  to  a  little  flagged  parlour,  belonging  to  the  oldest  por- 
tion of  the  house,  whei'e,  however,  a  great  log-fire  was  burning, 
and  some  chairs  drawn  up  round  it.  She  took  one  and  let  the  fur 
wrap  she  had  thrown  about  her  for  their  promenade  through  the 
disused  rooms  drop  from  her  shoulders.  It  lay  about  her  in  full 
bi'own  folds,  giving  special  dignity  to  her  slim  height  and  proud 
head.  Wharton  glancing  about  in  his  curious  inquisitive  way,  now 
at  the  neglected  pictures,  now  on  the  walls,  now  at  the  old  oak 
chairs  and  chests,  now  at  her,  said  to  himself  that  she  was  a 
splendid  and  inspiring  creature.  She  seemed  to  be  on  the  verge 
of  offence  with  him  too,  half  the  time,  which  was  stimulating. 

JU 


162  MAECELLA  book  ii 

She  would  have  liked,  he  thought,  to  play  the  great  lady  with  him 
already,  as  Aldous  Raeburn's  betrothed.  But  he  had  so  far  man- 
aged to  keep  her  off  that  plane  —  and  intended  to  go  on  doing  so. 

"  Well,  I  meant  this,"  he  said,  leaning  against  the  old  stone 
chimney  and  looking  down  upon  her;  "only  don't  be  offended 
with  me,  please.  You  are  a  Socialist,  and  you  are  going — some 
day  —  to  be  Lady  Maxwell.  Those  combinations  are  only  possi- 
ble to  women.  They  can  sustain  them,  because  they  are  imagina- 
tive—  not  logical." 

She  flushed. 

"And  you,"  she  said,  breathing  quickly,  "are  a  Socialist  and  a 
landlord.     What  is  the  difference?" 

He  laughed. 

"Ah!  but  I  have  no  gift  —  I  can't  ride  the  two  horses,  as  you 
will  be  able  to  —  quite  honestly.  There's  the  difference.  And  the 
consequence  is  that  with  my  own  class  I  am  an  outcast  —  they  all 
hate  me.  But  you  will  have  power  as  Lady  Maxwell  —  and  power 
as  a  Socialist  —  because  you  will  give  and  take.  Half  your  time 
you  will  act  as  Lady  Maxwell  should,  the  other  half  like  a  Ven- 
turist.  And,  as  I  said,  it  will  give  you  power  —  a  modified  power. 
But  men  are  less  clever  at  that  kind  of  thing." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  she  asked  him  abruptly,  "that  you  have 
given  up  the  luxuries  and  opportunities  of  your  class  ?  " 

He  shifted  his  position  a  little. 

"That  is  a  different  matter,"  he  said  after  a  moment.  "We 
Socialists  are  all  agreed,  I  think,  that  no  man  can  be  a  Socialist  by 
himself.  Luxuries,  for  the  present,  are  something  personal,  indi- 
vidual. It  is  only  a  man's  '  public  form '  that  matters.  And  there, 
as  I  said  before,  I  have  no  gift !  —  I  have  not  a  relation  or  an  old 
friend  in  the  world  that  has  not  turned  his  back  upon  me  —  as  you 
might  see  for  yourself  yesterday!  My  class  has  renounced  me 
already^ which,  after  all,  is  a  weakness." 

"  So  you  pity  yourself  ?  "  she  said. 

"By  no  means!  We  all  choose  the  part  in  life  that  amuses  us 
—  that  brings  us  most  thrill.  I  get  most  thrill  out  of  throwing 
myself  into  the  workmen's  war— much  more  than  I  could  ever 
get,  you  will  admit,  out  of  dancing  attendance  on  ray  very  respect- 
able cousins.  My  mother  taught  me  to  see  everything  dramati- 
cally. We  have  no  drama  in  England  at  the  present  moment 
worth  a  cent ;  so  I  amuse  myself  with  this  great  tragi-comedy  of 
the  working-class  movement.  It  stirs,  pricks,  interests  me,  from 
morning  till  night.  I  feel  the  great  rough  elemental  passions  in 
it,  and  it  delights  me  to  know  that  every  day  brings  us  nearer  to 
some  great  outburst,  to  scenes  and  struggles  at  any  rate  that  will 
make  us  all  look  alive.     I  am  like  a  child  with  the  best  of  its  cake 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  163 

to  come,  but  with  plenty  in  hand  ah-eady.  Ah !  —  stay  still  a 
moment,  Miss  Boyce  !  " 

To  her  amazement  he  stooped  suddenly  towards  her;  and  she, 
looking  down,  saw  that  a  corner  of  her  light,  black  dress,  which 
had  been  overhanging  the  low  stone  fender,  was  in  flames,  and  that 
he  was  putting  it  out  with  his  hands.  She  made  a  movement  to 
rise,  alarmed  lest  the  flames  should  leap  to  her  face  —  her  hair.  But 
he,  releasing  one  hand  for  an  instant  from  its  task  of  twisting  and 
rolling  the  skirt  upon  itself,  held  her  heavily  down. 

"  Don't  move ;  I  will  have  it  out  in  a  moment.  You  won't  be 
burnt." 

And  in  a  second  more  she  was  looking  at  a  ragged  brown  hole 
in  her  dress ;  and  at  him,  standing,  smiling,  before  the  fire,  and 
wrapping  a  handkerchief  round  some  of  the  fingers  of  his  left 
hand. 

"You  have  burnt  yourself,  Mr.  Wharton?" 

«  A  little." 

"I  will  go  and  get  something  —  what  would  you  like?" 

"  A  little  olive  oil  if  you  have  some,  and  a  bit  of  lint —  but  don't 
trouble  yourself," 

She  flew  to  find  her  mother's  maid,  calling  and  searching  on  her 
way  for  Mrs.  Boyce  herself,  but  in  vain.  Mrs.  Boyce  had  disap- 
peared after  breakfast,  and  was  probably  helping  her  husband  to 
dress. 

In  a  minute  or  so  Marcella  ran  downstairs  again,  bearing  vari- 
ous medicaments.  She  sped  to  the  Stone  Parlour,  her  cheek  and 
eye  glowing. 

"  Let  me  do  it  for  you." 

"  If  you  please,"  said  Wharton,  meekly. 

She  did  her  best,  but  she  was  not  skilful  with  her  fingers,  and 
this  close  contact  with  him  somehow  excited  her. 

"  There,"  she  said,  laughing  and  releasing  him.  "  Of  course,  if 
I  were  a  work-girl  I  should  have  done  it  better.  They  are  not 
going  to  be  very  bad,  I  think." 

"  What,  the  burns  ?  Oh,  no  !  They  will  have  recovered,  I  am 
afraid,  long  before  your  dress." 

"  Oh,  my  dress  !  yes,  it  is  deplorable.     I  will  go  and  change  it." 

She  turned  to  go,  but  she  lingered  instead,  and  said  with  an  odd, 
introductory  laugh : 

"  I  believe  you  saved  my  life  !  " 

"  Well,  I  am  glad  I  was  here.  You  might  have  lost  self-posses- 
sion —  even  you  might,  you  know  !  —  and  then  it  would  have  been 
serious." 

"  Anyway  "  —  her  voice  was  still  uncertain  —  "I  might  have  been 
disfigured  —  disfigured  for  life  ! " 


164  MAKCELLA  book  ii 

"  I  don't  know  why  you  should  dwell  upon  it  now  it's  done 
with,"  he  declared,  smiling. 

"  It  would  be  strange,  wouldn't  it,  if  I  took  it  quite  for  gi-anted 

—  all  in  the  day's  work  ?  "  She  held  out  her  hand  :  "  I  am  grate- 
ful—  please." 

He  bowed  over  it,  laughing,  again  with  that  eighteenth-century 
air  which  might  have  become  a  Chevalier  des  Grieux. 

"May  I  exact  a  reward? " 

"  Ask  it." 

"  Will  you  take  me  down  with  you  to  your  village  ?  I  know  you 
are  going.  I  must  walk  on  afterwards  and  catch  a  midday  train 
to  Widrington.  I  have  an  appointment  there  at  two  o'clock.  But 
perhaps  you  will  introduce  me  to  one  or  two  of  your  poor  people 
first?" 

Marcella  assented,  went  iipstairs,  changed  her  dress,  and  put  on 
her  walking  things,  more  than  half  inclined  all  the  time  to  press 
her  mother  to  go  with  them.  She  was  a  little  unstrung  and  trem- 
ulous, pursued  by  a  feeling  that  she  was  somehow  letting  herself 
go,  behaving  disloyally  and  indecorously  towards  whom  ?  —  towards 
Aldous?  But  how,  or  why?  She  did  not  know.  But  there  was 
a  curious  sense  of  lost  bloom,  lost  dignity,  combined  with  an  odd 
wish  that  Mr.  Wharton  were  not  going  away  for  the  day.  In  the 
end,  however,  she  left  her  mother  undisturbed. 

By  the  time  they  were  half  way  to  the  village,  Marcella's  uncom- 
fortable feelings  had  all  passed  away.  Without  knowing  it,  she 
was  becoming  too  much  absorbed  in  her  companion  to  be  self- 
critical,  so  long  as  they  were  together.  It  seemed  to  her,  however, 
before  they  had  gone  more  than  a  few  hundred  yards  that  he 
was  taking  advantage  —  presuming  on  what  had  happened.  He 
offended  her  taste,  her  pride,  her  dignity,  in  a  hundred  ways,  she 
discovered.  At  the  same  time  it  was  site  who  was  always  on  the 
defensive  —  protecting  her  dreams,  her  acts,  her  opinions,  against 
the  constant  fire  of  his  half -ironical  questions,  which  seemed  to 
leave  her  no  time  at  all  to  carry  the  war  into  the  enemy's  country. 
He  put  her  through  a  quick  cross-examination  about  the  village, 
its  occupations,  the  incomes  of  the  people,  its  local  charities  and 
institutions,  what  she  hoped  to  do  for  it,  what  she  would  do  if 
she  could,  what  she  thought  it  possible  to  do.  She  answered  first 
reluctantly,  then  eagerly,  her  pride  all  alive  to  show  that  she  was 
not  merely  ignorant  and  amateurish.  But  it  was  no  good.  In 
the  end  he  made  her  feel  as  Anthony  Craven  had  constantly  done 

—  that  she  knew  nothing  exactly,  that  she  had  not  mastered  the 
conditions  of  any  one  of  the  social  problems  she  was  talking  about ; 
that  not  only  was  her  reading  of  no  account,  but  that  she  had  not 
even  managed  to  see  these  people,  to  interpret  their  lives  vnder  her 
very  eyes,  with  any  large  degree  of  insight. 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  165 

Especially  was  he  merciless  to  all  the  Lady  Bountiful  pose,  which 
meant  so  much  to  her  imagination  —  not  in  words  so  much  as  in 
manner.  lie  let  her  see  that  all  the  doling  and  shepherding  and 
advising  that  still  pleased  her  fancy  looked  to  him  the  merest  tem- 
porary palliative,  and  irretrievably  tainted,  even  at  that,  with  some 
vulgar  feeling  or  other.  All  that  the  well-to-do  could  do  for  the 
poor  under  the  present  state  of  society  was  but  a  niggardly  quit- 
rent  ;  as  for  any  relation  of  "  superior  "  and  "  inferior "  in  the 
business,  or  of  any  social  desert  attaching  to  these  precious  efforts 
of  the  upper  class  to  daub  the  gaps  in  the  ruinous  social  edifice  for 
which  they  were  themselves  responsible,  he  did  not  attempt  to  con- 
ceal his  scorn.  If  you  did  not  do  these  things,  so  much  the  worse 
for  you  when  the  working  class  came  to  its  own ;  if  you  did  do 
them,  the  burden  of  debt  was  hardly  diminished,  and  the  rope  was 
still  left  on  your  neck. 

Now  Marcella  herself  had  on  one  or  two  occasions  taken  a  mali- 
cious pleasin-e  in  flaunting  these  doctrines,  or  some  of  them,  under 
IVIiss  Raeburn's  eyes.  But  somehow,  as  applied  to  herself,  they 
were  disagreeable.  Each  of  us  is  to  himself  a  "special  case  ";  and 
she  saw  the  other  side.  Hence  a  constant  soreness  of  feeling ;  a 
constant  recalling  of  the  argument  to  the  personal  point  of  view ; 
and  through  it  all  a  curious  growth  of  intimacy,  a  rubbing  away 
of  barriers.  She  had  felt  herself  of  no  account  before,  intellectu- 
ally, in  Aldous's  company,  as  we  know.  But  then  how  involuntary 
on  his  part,  and  how  counterbalanced  by  that  passionate  idealism 
of  his  love,  which  glorified  every  pretty  impulse  in  her  to  the 
noblest  proportions  !  Under  Wharton's  Socratic  method,  she  was 
conscious  at  times  of  the  most  wild  and  womanish  desires,  worthy 
of  her  childhood  —  to  cry,  to  go  into  a  passion !  —  and  when  they 
came  to  the  village,  and  every  human  creature,  old  and  young, 
dropped  its  obsequious  curtsey  as  they  passed,  she  could  first  have 
beaten  them  for  so  degrading  her,  and  the  next  moment  felt  a 
feverish  pleasure  in  thus  parading  her  petty  power  before  a  man 
who  in  his  doctrinaire  pedantry  had  no  sense  of  poetry,  or  -of  the 
dear  old  natural  relations  of  country  life. 

They  went  first  to  Mrs.  Jellison's,  to  whom  Marcella  wished  to 
unfold  her  workshop  scheme. 

"  Don't  let  me  keep  you,"  she  said  to  Wharton  coldly,  as  they 
neared  the  cottage ;  "  I  know  you  have  to  catch  your  train." 

Wharton  consulted  his  watch.  He  had  to  be  at  a  local  station 
some  two  miles  off  within  an  hour. 

"  Oh !  I  have  time,"  he  said.  "  Do  take  me  in,  Miss  Boyce.  I 
have  made  acquaintance  with  these  people  so  far,  as  my  constitu- 
ents—  now  show  them  to  me  as  your  subjects.  Besides,  I  am  an 
observer.     I  '  collect '  peasants.     They  are  my  study." 


166  MARCELLA  book  ii 

"  They  are  not  my  subjects,  but  my  friends,"  she  said  with  the 
same  stiffness. 

They  found  Mrs.  Jellison  having  her  dinner.  The  lively  old 
woman  was  sitting  close  against  her  bit  of  fire,  on  her  left  a  small 
deal  table  which  held  her  cold  potatoes  and  cold  bacon ;  on  her  right 
a  tiny  window  and  window-sill  whereon  lay  her  coil  of  "  plait "  and 
the  simple  straw-splitting  machine  she  had  just  been  working. 
AVhen  Marcella  had  taken  the  onlj^  other  chair  the  hovel  contained, 
nothing  else  remained  for  Wharton  but  to  flatten  himself  as  closely 
against  the  door' as  he  might. 

"  I'm  sorry  I  can't  bid  yer  take  a  cheer,"  said  Mrs.  Jellison  to 
him,  "but  what  yer  han't  got  yer  can't  give,  so  I  don't  trouble 
my  head  about  nothink." 

Wharton  applauded  her  with  easy  politeness,  and  then  gave 
himself,  with  folded  arms,  to  examining  the  cottage  while  Marcella 
talked.  It  might  be  ten  feet  broad,  he  thought,  by  six  feet  in  one 
part  and  eight  feet  in  another.  The  roof  was  within  little  more  than 
an  inch  of  his  head.  The  stairway  in  the  corner  was  falling  to 
pieces ;  he  wondered  how  the  woman  got  up  safely  to  her  bed  at 
night ;  custom,  he  supposed,  can  make  even  old  bones  agile. 

Meanwhile  Marcella  was  unfolding  the  project  of  the  straw- 
plaiting  workshop  that  she  and  Lady  Winterbourne  were  about  to 
start.  Mrs.  Jellison  put  on  her  spectacles  apparently  that  she 
might  hear  the  better,  pushed  away  her  dinner  in  spite  of  her 
visitors'  civilities,  and  listened  with  a  bright  and  beady  eye. 

"  An'  yer  agoin'  to  pay  me  one  a  sixpence  a  score,  where  I  now 
gets  ninepence.  And  I'll  not  have  to  tramp  it  into  town  no  more 
—  you'll  send  a  man  round.  And  who  is  agoin'  to  pay  me,  miss,  if 
you'll  excuse  me  asking  ?  " 

"  Lady  Winterbourne  and  I,"  said  Marcella,  smiling.  "  We're 
going  to  employ  this  village  and  two  others,  and  make  as  good 
business  of  it  as  we  can.  But  we're  going  to  begin  by  giving  the 
workers  better  wages,  and  in  time  we  hope  to  teach  them  the  higher 
kinds  of  work." 

"  Lor' !  "  said  Mrs.  Jellison.  "  But  I'm  not  one  o'  th^m  as  kin  do 
with  changes."  She  took  up  her  plait  and  looked  at  it  thought- 
fully. "  Eighteen-pence  a  score.  It  wor  that  rate  when  I  wor  a 
■girl.  An'  it  ha'  been  dibble  —  dibble  —  iver  sense;  a  penny  off 
here,  an'  a  penny  off  there,  an'  a  hard  job  to  keep  a  bite  ov  anythink 
in  your  mouth." 

"  Then  I  may  put  down  your  name  among  our  workers,  Mrs. 
Jellison?"  said  Marcella,  rising  and  smiling  down  upon  her. 

"  Oh,  Lor',  no ;  I  niver  said  that,"  said  Mrs.  Jellison,  hastily.  "  I 
don't  hold  wi'  shilly-shallyin'  wi'  yer  means  o'  livin'.  I've  took  my 
plait  to  Jimmy  Gedge  —  'im  an'  'is  son,  fust  shop  on  yer  right 


CHAP.  IV  MAECELLA  167 

hand  when  yer  git  into  town — twenty-five  year,  summer  and 
winter  —  me  an'  three  other  women,  as  give  me  a  penny  a  jonrney 
for  takin'  theirs.  If  I  wor  to  go  messin'  about  wi'  Jimmy  Gedge, 
Lor'  bless  yer,  I  should  'ear  ov  it  —  oh !  I  shoulden  sleep  o'  nights 
for  thinkin'  o'  how  Jimmy  ud  serve  me  out  when  I  wor  least 
egspectin'  ov  it.  He's  a  queer  un.  No,  miss,  thank  yer  kindly ; 
but  I  think  I'll  bide." 

Marcella,  amazed,  began  to  argue  a  little,  to  expound  the  many 
attractions  of  the  new  scheme.  Greatly  to  her  annoyance,  Wharton 
came  forward  to  her  help,  guaranteeing  the  solvency  and  perma- 
nence of  her  new  partnership  in  glib  and  pleasant  phrase,  wherein 
her  angry  fancy  suspected  at  once  the  note  of  irony.  But  Mrs. 
Jellison  held  firm,  embroidering  her  negative,  indeed,  with  her 
usual  cheerful  chatter,  but  sticking  to  it  all  the  same.  At  last 
there  was  no  way  of  saving  dignity  but  to  talk  of  something  else 
and  go  —  above  all,  to  talk  of  something  else  before  going,  lest 
the  would-be  benefactor  should  be  thought  a  petty  tyrant. 

"Oh,  Johnnie?  —  thank  yer,  miss  —  'e's  an  owdacious  young 
villain  as  iver  I  seed  —  but  clever  —  Lor',  you'd  need  'ave  eyes  in 
yer  back  to  look  after  'm.  An'  coaxin' !  *  'Aven't  yer  brought  me 
no  sweeties,  Gran'ma  ? '  '  No,  my  dear,'  says  I.  '  But  if  you  was 
to  look,  Gran'ma  —  in  both  your  pockets,  Gran'ma — iv  you  was  to 
let  me  look  ? '  It's  a  sharp  un  Isabella,  she  don't  'old  wi'  sweet- 
stuff,  she  says,  sich  a  pack  o'  nonsense.  She'd  stuff  herself  sick 
when  she  wor  'is  age.  Why  shouldn't  ee  be  happy,  same  as  her  ? 
There  ain't  much  to  make  a  child  'appy  in  that  'ouse.  Westall, 
ee's  that  mad  about  them  poachers  over  Tudley  End ;  ee's  like  a 
wild  bull  at  'ome.  I  told  Isabella  ee'd  come  to  knockin'  ov  her 
about  some  day,  though  ee  did  speak  so  oily  when  ee  wor  a  courtin'. 
Now  she  knows  as  I  kin  see  a  thing  or  two,"  said  Mrs.  Jellison, 
significantly.  Her  manner,  Wharton  noticed,  kept  always  the  same 
gay  philosophy,  whatever  subject  turned  up. 

"Why,  that's  an  old  story  —  that  Tudley  End  business  —  "  said 
Marcella,  rising.  "  I  should  have  thought  Westall  might  have  got 
over  it  by  now." 

"  But  bless  yer,  ee  says  it's  goin'  on  as  lively  as  iver.  Ee  says 
ee  knows  they're  set  on  grabbin'  the  bhds  t'other  side  the  estate, 
over  beyond  Mellor  way  —  ee's  got  wiiid  of  it  —  an'  ee's  watchin' 
night  an'  day  to  see  they  don't  do  him  no  bad  turn  this  month, 
bekase  o'  the  big  shoot  they  alius  has  in  January.  An'  Lor',  ee  do 
speak  drefful  bad  o'  soom  folks,"  said  Mrs.  Jellison,  with  an  amused 
expression.  "  You  know  some  on  'em,  miss,  don't  yer  ?  "  And 
the  old  woman,  who  had  begun  toying  with  her  potatoes,  slanted 
her  fork  over  her  shoulder  so  as  to  point  'towards  the  Hurds' 
cottage,  whereof  the  snow-laden  roof  could  be  seen  conspicuously 


168  MARCELLA  book  ir 

through  the  little  lattice  beside  her,  making  sly  eyes  the  while  at 
her  visitor. 

"  I  don't  believe  a  word  of  it,"  said  Marcella,  impatiently.  "  Hurd 
has  been  in  good  work  since  October,  and  has  no  need  to  'poach. 
Westall  has  a  down  on  him.  You  may  tell  him  I  think  so,  if  you 
like." 

"  That  I  will,"  said  Mrs.  Jellison,  cheerfully,  opening  the  door 
for  them.  "  There's  nobody  makes  'im  'ear  the  treuth,  nobbut 
me.  I  loves  naggiu'  ov  'im,  ee's  that  masterful.  But  ee  don't 
master  me ! " 

'•  A  gay  old  thing,"  said  Wharton  as  they  shut  the  gate  behind 
them.  "  How  she  does  enjoy  the  humaii  spectacle.  And  obsti- 
nate too.     But  you  will  find  the  younger  ones  more  amenable." 

"  Of  course,"  said  Marcella,  with  dignity.  "  I  have  a  great  many 
names  already.  The  old  people  are  always  difficult.  But  Mrs. 
Jellison  will  come  round." 

"  Are  you  going  in  here  ?  " 

"  Please." 

Wharton  knocked  at  the  Hurds  door,  and  Mrs.  Hurd  opened. 

The  cottage  was  thick  with  smoke.  The  chimney  only  drew 
when  the  door  was  left  open.  But  the  wind  to-day  was  so  bitter 
that  mother  and  children  preferred  the  smoke  to  the  draught. 
Marcella  soon  made  out  the  poor  little  bronchitic  boy,  sitting 
coughing  by  the  fire,  and  Mrs.  Hurd  busied  with  some  washing. 
She  introduced  Wharton,  who,  as  before,  stood  for  some  time,  hat 
in  hand,  studying  the  cottage.  Marcella  was  perfectly  conscious 
of  it,  and  a  blush  rose  to  her  cheek  while  she  talked  to  Mrs. 
Hurd.  For  both  this  and  Mrs.  Jellison's  hovel  were  her  father's 
property  and  somewhat  highly  rented. 

Minta  Hurd  said  eagerly  that  she  would  join  the  new  straw- 
plaiting,  and  went  on  to  throw  out  a  number  of  hurried,  half- 
coherent  remarks  about  the  state  of  the  trade  past  and  present, 
leaning  meanwhile  against  the  table  and  endlessly  drying  her 
hands  on  the  towel  she  had  taken  up  when  her  visitors  came  in. 

Her  manner  was  often  nervous  and  flighty  in  these  days.  She 
never  looked  happy ;  but  Marcella  put  it  down  to  health  or  natural 
querulousness  of  character.  Yet  both  she  and  the  children  were 
clearly  better  nourished,  except  Willie,  in  whom  the  tubercular 
tendency  was  fast  gaining  on  the  child's  strength. 

Altogether  Marcella  was  proud  of  her  work,  and  her  eager 
interest  in  this  little  knot  of  people  whose  lives  she  had  shaped 
was  more  possessive  than  ever.  Hurd,  indeed,  was  often  silent 
and  secretive  ;  but  she  put  down  her  difficulties  with  him  to  our 
odious  system  of  class  differences,  against  which  in  her  own  way 
she  was  struggling.     One  thing  delighted  her  —  that  he  seemed 


CHAP.   IV  MARCELLA  169 

to  take  more  and  more  interest  in  the  labour  questions  she 
discussed  with  him,  and  in  that  fervid,  exuberant  literature  she 
provided  him  with.  Moreover,  he  now  went  to  all  Mr.  "Wharton's 
meetings  that  were  held  within  reasonable  distance  of  Mellor ; 
and,  as  she  said  to  Aldous  with  a  little  laugh,  which,  however,  was 
not  unsweet,  he  had  found  lier  man  work  —  she  had  robbed  his 
candidate  of  a  vote. 

Wharton  listened  awhile  to  her  talk  with  Minta,  smiled  a  little, 
unperceived  of  Marcella,  at  the  young  mother's  docilities  of  man- 
ner and  phrase ;  then  turned  his  attention  to  the  little  hunched 
and  coughing  object  by  the  fire. 

"Are  you  very  bad,  little  man?" 

The  white-faced  child  looked  up,  a  dreary  look,  revealing  a 
patient,  melancholy  soul.  He  tried  to  answer,  but  coughed 
instead. 

Wharton,  moving  towards  him,  saw  a  bit  of  ragged  white  jaaper 
lying  on  the  ground,  which  had  been  torn  from  a  grocery  parcel. 

"Would  you  like  something  to  amuse  you  a  bit — Ugh!  this 
smoke  !  Come  round  here,  it  won't  catch  us  so  much.  Now,  then, 
what  do  you  say  to  a  doggie,  —  two  doggies?" 

The  child  stared,  let  himself  be  lifted  on  the  sti'anger's  knee, 
and  did  his  very  utmost  to  stop  coughing.  But  when  he  had  suc- 
ceeded his  quick  panting  breaths  still  shook  his  tiny  frame  and 
Wharton's  knee. 

"  Hm  —  Give  him  two  months  or  thereabouts  !  "  thought  Whar- 
ton. "What  a  beastly  hole! — one  room  up,  and  one  down,  like 
the  other,  only  a  shade  larger.  Damp,  insanitary,  cold  —  bad 
water,  bad  drainage,  I'll  be  bound  —  bad  everything.  That  girl 
may  well  try  her  little  best.  And  I  go  making  up  to  that  man 
Boyce  !    What  for?  Old  spites? — new  spites? — which?  —  or  both!  " 

Meanwhile  his  rapid  skilful  fingers  were  tearing,  pinching,  and 
shaping ;  and  in  a  very  few  minutes  there,  upon  his  free  knee,  stood 
the  most  enticing  doggie  of  pinched  paper,  a  hound  in  full  course, 
with  long  ears  and  stretching  legs. 

The  child  gazed  at  it  with  ravishment,  put  out  a  weird  hand, 
touched  it,  stroked  it,  and  then,  as  he  looked  back  at  Wharton, 
the  most  exquisite  smile  dawned  in  his  saucer-blue  eyes. 

"What?  did  you  like  it,  grasshopper?"  cried  Wharton,  en- 
chanted by  the  beauty  of  the  look,  his  own  colour  mounting. 
"  Then  you  shall  have  another." 

And  he  twisted  and  turned  his  piece  of  fresh  paper,  till  there, 
beside  the  first,  stood  a  second  fairy  animal  —  a  greyhound  this 
time,  with  arching  neck  and  sharp  long  nose. 

"  There's  two  on  'em  at  Westall's !  "  cried  the  child,  hoarsely, 
clutching  at  his  treasures  in  an  ecstasy. 


170  MARCELLA  book  ii 

Mrs.  Hm-d,  at  the  other  end  of  the  cottage,  started  as  she  heard 
the  name.  Marcella  noticed  it;  and  with  her  eager  sympathetic 
look  began  at  once  to  talk  of  Hurd  and  the  works  at  the  Court.  She 
understood  they  were  doing  grand  things,  and  that  the  work  would 
last  all  the  winter.  Minta  answered  hurriedly  and  with  a  curious 
choice  of  phrases.  "Oh  !  he  didn't  have  nothing  to  say  against  it.' 
Mr.  Brown,  the  steward,  seemed  satisfied.  All  that  she  said  was 
somehow  irrelevant;  and,  to  Marcella's  annoyance,  plaintive  as 
usual.  Wharton,  with  the  boy  inside  his  arm,  turned  his  head  an 
instant  to  listen. 

•  Marcella,  having  thought  of  repeating,  without  names,  some  of 
Mrs.  Jellison's  gossip,  then  shrank  from  it.  He  had  promised  her, 
she  thought  to  herself  with  a  proud  delicacy;  and  she 'was  not 
going  to  treat  the  word  of  a  working  man  as  different  from  any- 
body else's. 

So  she  fastened  her  cloak  again,  which  she  had  thrown  open  in 
the  stifling  air  of  the  cottage,  and  turned  both  to  call  her  com- 
panion and  give  a  smile  or  two  to  the  sick  boy. 

But,  as  she  did  so,  she  stood  amazed  at  the  spectacle  of  Wharton 
and  the  child.  Then,  moving  up  to  them,  she  perceived  the 
menagerie  —  for  it  had  grown  to  one  —  on  Wharton's  knee. 

"  You  didn't  guess  I  had  such  tricks,"  he  said,  smiling. 

"  But  they  are  so  good  —  so  artistic  !  "  She  took  up  a  little 
galloping  horse  he  had  just  fashioned  and  wondered  at  it. 

"  A  great-aunt  taught  me  —  she  was  a  genius  —  I  follow  her  at 
a  long  distance.  Will  you  let  me  go,  young  man?  You  may  keep 
all  of  them." 

But  the  child,  with  a  sudden  contraction  of  the  brow,  flung  a 
tiny  stick-like  arm  round  his  neck,  pressing  hard,  and  looking  at 
him.  There  was  a  red  spot  in  each  wasted  cheek,  and  his  eyes 
were  wide  and  happy.  Wharton  returned  the  look  with  one  of 
quiet  scrutiny  —  the  scrutiny  of  the  doctor  or  the  philosopher. 
On  Marcella's  quick  sense  the  contrast  of  the  two  heads  impressed 
itself  —  the  delicate  youth  of  Wharton's  with  its  clustering  curls 
—  the  sunken  contours  and  the  helpless  suffering  of  the  other. 
Then  Wharton  kissed  the  little  fellow,  put  his  animals  carefully 
on  to  a  chair  beside  him,  and  set  him  down. 

They  walked  along  the  snowy  street  again,  in  a  different  rela- 
tion to  each  other.  Marcella  had  been  touched  and  charmed,  and 
Wharton  teased  her  no  more.  As  they  reached  the  door  of  the 
almshouse  where  the  old  Pattons  lived,  she  said  to  him  :  "  I  think 
I  had  rather  go  in  here  by  myself,  please.  I  have  some  things  to 
give  them  —  old  Patton  has  been  very  ill  this  last  week  —  but  I 
know  what  you  think  of  doles  —  and  I  know  too  what  you  think, 
what  you  must  think,  of  my  father's  cottages.     It  makes  me  feel  a 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  171 

hj^ocrite ;  yet  I  must  do  these  things ;  we  are  different,  you  and 
I  —  I  am  sure  j'ou  will  miss  your  train  !  " 

But  there  was  no  antagonism,  only  painful  feeling  in  her  soft- 
ened look. 

Wharton  put  out  his  hand. 

"  Yes,  it  is  time  for  me  to  go.  You  say  I  make  you  feel  a  hj'po- 
crite  !  I  wonder  whether  you  have  any  idea  what  you  make  me 
feel  ?  Do  you  imagine  I  should  dare  to  say  the  things  I  have  said 
except  to  one  of  the  elite  ?  Would  it  be  worth  my  while,  as  a 
social  reformer  ?  Are  you  not  vowed  to  great  destinies  ?  When 
one  comes  across  one  of  the  tools  of  the  future,  must  one  not  try 
to  sharpen  it,  out  of  one's  poor  resources,  in  spite  of  manners  ?  " 

Marcella,  stirred  —  abashed  —  fascinated  —  let  him  press  her 
hand.  Then  he  walked  rapidly  away  towards  the  station,  a  faint 
smile  twitching  at  his  lip. 

"  An  inexperienced  girl,"  he  said  to  himself,  composedly. 


CHAPTER  V 

Before  she  went  home,  Marcella  turned  into  the  little  rectory 
garden  to  see  if  she  could  find  Mary  Harden  for  a  minute  or  two. 
The  intimacy  between  them  was  such  that  she  generally  found 
entrance  to  the  house  by  going  round  to  a  garden  door  and  knock- 
ing or  calling.  The  house  was  very  small,  and  Mary's  little  sit- 
ting-room was  close  to  this  door. 

Her  knock  brought  Mary  instantly. 

"  Oh  !  come  in.  You  won't  mind.  We  were  just  at  dinner. 
Charles  is  going  away  directly.     Do  stay  and  talk  to  me  a  bit." 

Marcella  hesitated,  but  at  last  w"ent  in.  The  meals  at  the  rec- 
tory distressed  her  —  the  brother  and  sister  showed  the  marks  of 
them.  To-day  she  found  their  usual  fare  carefully  and  prettily 
arranged  on  a  spotless  table  ;  some  bread,  cheese,  and  boiled  rice 
—  nothing  else.  Nor  did  they  allow  themselves  any  fire  for  meals. 
Marcella,  sitting  beside  them  in  her  fur,  did  not  feel  the  cold,  but 
Mary  was  clearly  shivering  under  her  shawl.  They  eat  meat  twice 
a  week,  and  in  the  afternoon  Mary  lit  the  sitting-room  fire.  In 
the  morning  she  contented  herself  with  the  kitchen,  where,  as  she 
cooked  for  many  sick  folk,  and  had  only  a  gii'l  of  fourteen  whom 
she  was  training  to  help  her  with  the  housework,  she  had  gener- 
ally much  to  do. 

The  Rector  did  not  stay  long  after  her  arrival.  He  had  a  dis- 
tant visit  to  pay  to  a  dying  child,  and  hurried  off  so  as  to  be  home, 
if  possible,  before  dark.  Marcella  admired  him,  but  did  not  feel 
that  she  understood   him   more  as  they  were  better   acquainted. 


172  MARCELLA  book  ii 

He  was  slight  aiid  young,  and  not  very  clever ;  but  a  certain  inex- 
pugnable dignity  surrounded  him,  which,  real  as  it  was,  sometimes 
irritated  Marcella.  It  sat  oddly  on  his  round  face  —  boyish  still, 
in  spite  of  its  pinched  and  anxious  look  —  but  there  it  was,  not  to 
be  ignored.  Marcella  thought  him  a  Conservative,  and  very  back- 
ward and  ignorant  in  his  political  and  social  opinions.  But  she 
was  perfectly  conscious  that  she  must  also  think  him  a  saint ;  and 
that  the  deepest  things  in  him  were  probably  not  for  her. 

Mr.  Harden  said  a  few  words  to  her  now  as  to  her  straw-plait- 
ing scheme,  which  had  his  warmest  sympathy  —  Marcella  con- 
trasted his  tone  gratefully  with  that  of  Wharton,  and  once  more 
fell  happily  in  love  with  her  own  ideas  —  then  he  went  off,  leav- 
ing the  two  girls  together. 

"  Have  you  seen  Mrs.  Hurd  this  morning?  "  said  Mary. 

"  Yes ;  Willie  seems  very  bad." 

Mary  assented. 

"  The  doctor  says  he  will  hardly  get  through  the  winter,  espe- 
cially if  this  weather  goes  on.  But  the  greatest  excitement  of  the 
village  just  now  —  do  you  know?  —  is  the  quarrel  between  Hurd 
and  Westall.  Somebody  told  Charles  yesterday  that  they  never 
meet  without  threatening  each  other.  Since  the  covers  at  Tudley 
End  were  raided,  Westall  seems  to  have  quite  lost  his  head.  He 
declares  Hurd  knew  all  about  that,  and  that  he  is  hand  and  glove 
with  the  same  gang  still.  He  vows  he  will  catch  him  out,  and 
Hurd  told  the  man  who  told  Charles  that  if  Westall  bullies  him 
any  more  he  will  put  a  knife  into  him.  And  Charles  says  that 
Hurd  is  not  a  bit  like  he  was.  He  used  to  be  such  a  patient, 
silent  creature.     Now  —  " 

"  He  has  woke  up  to  a  few  more  ideas  and  a  little  more  life  than 
he  had,  that's  all,"  said  Marcella,  impatiently.  "  He  poached  last 
wintei',  and  small  blame  to  him.  But  since  he  got  work  at  the 
Court  in  November  —  is  it  likely?  He  knows  that  he  Avas  sus- 
pected ;  and  what  could  be  his  interest  now,  after  a  hard  day's 
work,  to  go  out  again  at  night,  and  run  the  risk  of  falling  into 
Westall's  clutches,  when  he  doesn't  want  either  the  food  or  the 
money  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Mary,  shaking  her  head.  "  Charles  says, 
if  they  once  do  it,  they  hardly  ever  leave  it  off  altogether.  It's 
the  excitement  and  amusement  of  it." 

"  He  promised  me,"  said  Marcella,  proudly. 

"  They  promise  Charles  all  sorts  of  things,"  said  Mary,  slyly ; 
"  but  they  don't  keep  to  them." 

Warmly  grateful  as  both  she  and  the  Rector  had  been  from  the 
beginning  to  Marcella  for  the  passionate  interest  she  took  in  the 
place  and  the  people,  the  sister  was  sometimes  now  a  trifle  jealous 


CHAP.  V  MAECELLA  173 

—  divinely  jealous  —  for  her  brother.  Marcella's  unbounded  con- 
fidence in  her  OM^n  power  and  right  over  Mellor,  her  growing 
tendency  to  ignore  anybody  else's  right  or  power,  sometimes  set 
Mary  aflame,  for  Charles's  sake,  heartily  and  humbly  as  she 
admired  her  beautiful  friend. 

"  I  shall  speak  to  Mr.  Raeburn  about  it,"  said  jNIarcella. 

She  never  called  him  "  Aldous  "  to  anybody  —  a  stiffness  which 
jarred  a  little  upon  the  gentle,  sentimental  INIary. 

"  I  saw  you  pass,"  she  said,  "  from  one  of  the  top  windows.  He 
was  with  you,  wasn't  he  ?  " 

A  slight  colour  sprang  to  her  sallow  cheek,  a  light  to  her  eyes. 
Most  wonderful,  most  interesting  was  this  engagement  to  Mary, 
who  —  strange  to  think !  —  had  almost  brought  it  about.  Mr. 
Raeburn  was  to  her  one  of  the  best  and  noblest  of  men,  and  she 
felt  quite  simply,  and  with  a  sort  of  Christian  trembling  for  him, 
the  romance  of  his  great  position.  Was  INIai'cella  happy,  was  she 
proud  of  him,  as  she  ought  to  be?     Mary  was  often  puzzled  by  her. 

"  Oh  no !  "  said  Marcella,  with  a  little  laugh.  "  That  wasn't  Mr. 
Raeburn.  I  don't  know  where  your  eyes  were,  Mary.  That  was 
Mr.  Wharton,  who  is  staying  with  us.  He  has  gone  on  to  a  meet- 
ing at  Widrington." 

Mary's  face  fell. 

"  Charles  says  Mr.  Wharton's  influence  in  the  village  is  very 
bad,"  she  said  quickly.  "  He  makes  everybody  discontented ; 
sets  everybody  by  the  ears ;  and,  after  all,  what  can  he  do  for 
anybody? " 

"  But  that's  just  what  he  wants  to  do  —  to  make  them  discon- 
tented," cried  Marcella.  "  Then,  if  they  vote  for  him,  that's  the 
first  practical  step  towards  improving  their  life." 

"  But  it  won't  give  them  more  wages  or  keep  them  out  of  the 
public  house,"  said  Mary,  bewildered.  She  came  of  a  homely  mid- 
dle-class stock,  accustomed  to  a.  small  range  of  thinking,  and  a 
high  standard  of  doing.  Marcella's  political  opinions  were  an 
amazement,  and  on  the  whole  a  scandal  to  her.  She  preferred 
generally  to  give  them  a  wide  berth. 

Marcella  did  not  reply.  It  was  not  worth  while  to  talk  to  Mary 
on  these  topics.     But  Mary  stuck  to  the  subject  a  moment  longer. 

"You  can't  want  him  to  get  in,  though?"  she  said  in  a  puzzled 
voice,  as  she  led  the  way  to  the  little  sitting-room  across  the  pas- 
sage, and  took  her  work-basket  out  of  the  cupboard.  "It  was  only 
the  week  before  last  Mr.  Raeburn  was  speaking  at  the  schoolroom 
for  Mr.  Dodgson.     You  weren't  there,  Marcella?  " 

"  No,"  said  Marcella,  shortly.  "  I  thought  you  knew  perfectly 
well,  Mary,  that  ]\Ir.  Raeburn  and  I  don't  agree  politically.  Cer- 
tainly, I  hope  Mr.  Wharton  will  get  in  !  " 


174  >  MARCELLA  book  ii 

Mary  opened  her  eyes  in  wonderment.  She  stared  at  Marcella, 
forgetting  the  sock  slie  had  just  slipped  over  her  left  hand,  and 
the  darning  needle  in  her  right. 

Marcella  laughed. 

''  I  know  you  think  that  two  people  who  are  going  to  be  married 
ought  to  say  ditto  to  each  other  in  everything.  Don't  you  —  you 
dear  old  goose  ?  " 

She  came  and  stood  beside  Mary,  a  stately  and  beautiful  ci'eature 
in  her  loosened  furs.  She  stroked  Mary's  straight  sandy  hair  back 
from  her  forehead.  Mary  looked  up  at  her  with  a  thrill,  nay,  a 
passionate  throb  of  envy  —  soon  suppressed. 

"  I  think,"  she  said  steadily,  "  it  is  very  strange  —  that  love 
should  oppose  and  disagree  with  what  it  loves." 

Marcella  went  restlessly  towards  the  fii-e  and  began  to  examine 
the  things  on  the  mantelpiece. 

"Can't  people  agi'ee  to  differ,  you  sentimentalist?  Can't  they 
respect  each  other,  without  echoing  each  other  on  every  subject?  " 

"  Respect !  "  cried  Mary,  with  a  sudden  scorn;  which  was  startling 
from  a  creature  so  soft. 

"  There,  she  could  tear  me  in  pieces !  "  said  Marcella,  laughing, 
though  her  lip  was  not  steady.  "  I  wonder  what  you  would  be 
like,  Mary,  if  you  were  engaged." 

Mary  ran  her  needle  in  and  out  with  lightning  speed  for  a  second 
or  two,  then  she  said  almost  under  her  breath  — 

"  I  shouldn't  be  engaged  unless  I  were  in  love.  And  if  I  were  in 
love,  why,  I  would  go  anywhere  —  do  anything  — believe  anything 
—  if  he  told  me  !  " 

"  Believe  anything  ?  —  Mary  —  you  wouldn't ! " 

"  I  don't  mean  as  to  religion,"  said  Mary,  hastily.  "  But  every- 
thing else  —  I  would  give  it  all  up  !  — governing  one's  self,  thinking 
for  one's  self.     He  should  do  it,  and  I  would  bless  him !  " 

She  looked  up  crimson,  drawing  a  very  long  breath,  as  though 
from  some  deep  centre  of  painful,  passionate  feeling.  It  was 
Marcella's  turn  to  stare.  Never  had  Mary  so  revealed  herself 
before. 

"  Did  you  ever  love  any  one  like  that,  Mary?  "  she  asked  quickly. 

Mary  dropped  her  head  again  over  her  work  and  did  not  answer 
immediately. 

"  Do  you  see  —  "  she  said  at  last,  with  a  change  of  tone,  "  do  you 
see  that  we  have  got  our  invitation  ?  " 

Marcella,  about  to  give  the  rein  to  an  eager  curiosity  Mary's 
manner  had  excited  in  her,  felt  herself  pulled  up  sharply.  When 
she  chose,  this  little  meek  creature  could  put  on  the  same  unap- 
proachableness  as  her  brother.     Marcella  submitted. 

"  Yes,  I  see,"  she  said,  taking  up  a  card  on  the  mantelpiece.     "  It 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  175 

will  be  a  great  crush.  I  suppose  you  know.  They  liave  asked  the 
whole  county,  it  seems  to  me." 

The  card  bore  an  invitation  in  Miss  Raeburn's  name  for.  the 
Rector  and  his  sister  to  a  dance  at  Maxwell  Court  —  the  date  given 
was  the  twenty-fifth  of  January. 

"  What  fun  !  "  said  IMary,  her  eye  sparkling.  "  You  needn't  sup- 
pose that  I  know  enough  of  balls  to  be  particular.  I  have  only 
been  to  one  before  in  my  life — ever.  That  was  at  Cheltenham. 
An  aunt  took  me  —  I  didn't  dance.  There  were  hardly  any  men, 
but  I  enjoyed  it." 

"  Well,  you  shall  dance  this  time,"  said  Marcella,  "  for  I  will 
make  Mr.  Raeburn  introduce  you." 

"  Nonsense,  you  won't  have  any  time  to  think  about  me.  You 
will  be  the  queen  —  everybody  will  want  to  speak  to  you.  I  shall 
sit  in  a  corner  and  look  at  you  —  that  will  be  enough  for  me." 

Marcella  went  up  to  her  quickly  and  kissed  her,  then  she  said, 
still  holding  her  — 

"  I  know  you  think  I  ought  to  be  very  happy,  Mary  !  " 

"  I  should  think  I  do !  "  said  Mary,  with  astonished  emphasis, 
when  the  voice  paused  —  "I  should  think  I  do  !  " 

"I  a??i  happy  —  and  I  want  to  make  him  happy.  But  there  are 
so  many  things,  so  many  different  aims  and  motives,  that  com- 
plicate life,  that  puzzle  one.  One  doesn't  know  how  much  to  give 
of  one's  self  to  each  —  " 

She  stood  with  her  hand  on  Mary's  shoulder,  looking  away 
towards  the  window  and  the  snowy  garden,  her  brow  frowning 
and  distressed. 

"  Well,  I  don't  understand,"  said  Mary,  after  a  pause.  "  As  I 
said  before,  it  seems  to  me  so  plain  and  easy  —  to  be  in  love,  and 
give  one's  self  all  —  to  that.  But  you  are  so  much  cleverer  than 
I,  Marcella,  you  know  so  much  more.  That  makes  the  difference. 
I  can't  be  like  you.  Perhaps  I  don't  want  to  be !  "  —  and  she 
laughed.  ^'But  I  can  admire  you  and  love  you,  and  think  about 
you.     There,  now,  tell  me  what  you  are  going  to  wear  ?  " 

"  White  satin,  and  Mr.  Raeburn  wants  me  to  wear  some  pearls 
he  is  going  to  give  me,  some  old  pearls  of  his  mother's.  I  believe 
I  shall  find  them  at  Mellor  when  I  get  back." 

There  was  little  girlish  pleasure  in  the  tone.  It  was  as  though 
Marcella  thought  her  friend  would  be  more  interested  in  her  bit 
of  news  than  she  was  herself,  and  was  handing  it  on  to  her  to 
please  her. 

"Isn't  there  a  superstition  against  doing  that — before  you're 
married?"  said  Mary,  doubtfully. 

"  As  if  I  should  mind  if  there  was  !  But  I  don't  believe  there 
is,  or  Miss  Raeburn  would  have  heard  of  it.     She's  a  mass  of  such 


176  MARCELLA  book  n 

things.  Well !  I  hope  I  shall  behave  myself  to  please  her  at  this 
function.  There  are  not  many  things  I  do  to  her  satisfaction  ;  it's 
a  mercy  we're  not  going  to  live  with  her.  Lord  Maxwell  is  a  dear ; 
but  she  and  I  would  never  get  on.  Every  way  of  thinking  she  has, 
rubs  me  up  the  wrong  way ;  and  as  for  her  view  of  me,  I  am  just 
a  tare  sown  among  her  wheat.     Perhaps  she  is  right  enough !  " 

Marcella  leant  her  cheek  pensively  on  one  hand,  and  with  the 
other  played  with  the  things  on  the  mantelpiece. 

Mary  looked  at  her,  and  then  half  smiled,  half  sighed. 

"  I  think  it  is  a  very  good  thing  you  are  to  be  married  soon," 
she  said,  with  her  little  air  of  wisdom,  which  offended  nobody. 
"  Then  you'll  know  your  own  mind.     When  is  it  to  be?  " 

"  The  end  of  February  —  after  the  election." 

"  Two  months,"  mused  Mary. 

"  Time  enough  to  throw  it  all  up  in,  you  think?"  said  Marcella, 
recklessly,  putting  on  her  gloves  for  departure.  "  Perhaps  you'll  be 
pleased  to  hear  that  I  am  going  to  a  meeting  of  Mr.  Raeburn's  next 
week?  " 

"  I  am  glad.     You  ought  to  go  to  them  all." 

"  Really,  Mary  !  How  am  I  to  lift  you  out  of  this  squaw  theory 
of  matrimony  ?  Allow  me  to  inform  you  that  the  following  even- 
ing I  am  going  to  one  of  Mr.  Wharton's  —  here  in  the  school- 
room !  " 

She  enjoyed  her  friend's  disapproval. 

"  By  yourself,  Marcella  ?     It  isn't  seemly ! " 

"I  shall  take  a  maid.  Mr.  Wharton  is  going  to  tell  us  how  the 
people  can  —  get  the  land,  and  how,  when  they  have  got  it,  all  the 
money  that  used  to  go  in  rent  will  go  in  taking  off  taxes  and  mak- 
ing life  comfortable  for  the  poor."  She  looked  at  Mary  with  a 
teasing  smile. 

"  Oh  !  I  dare  say  he  will  make  his  stealing  sound  very  pretty," 
said  Mary,  with  unwonted  scorn,  as  she  opened  the  front  door  for 
her  friend. 

Marcella  flashed  out. 

"  I  know  you  are  a  saint,  Mary,"  she  said,  turning  back  on  the 
path  outside  to  deliver  her  last  shaft.  "  I  am  often  not  so  sure 
whether  you  are  a  Christian  !  " 

Then  she  hurried  off  without  another  word,  leaving  the  flushed 
and  shaken  Mary  to  ponder  this  strange  dictum. 

ISIarcella  was  just  turning  into  the  straight  drive  which  led  past 
the  church  on  the  left  to  Mellor  House,  when  she  heard  footsteps 
behind  her,  and,  looking  round,  she  saw  Edward  Hallin. 

"  Will  you  give  me  some  lunch.  Miss  Boyce,  in  return  for  a  mes- 
sage ?     I  am  here  instead  of  Aldous,  who  is  very  sorry  for  himself. 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  177 

and  will  be  over  latei\  T  am  to  tell  you  that  he  went  down  to  the 
station  to  meet  a  certain  box.  The  box  did  not  come,  but  will 
come  this  afternoon ;  so  he  waits  for  it,  and  will  bring  it  over." 

Marcella  flushed,  smiled,  and  said  she  understood.  Hallin 
moved  on  beside  her,  evidently  glad  of  the  opportunity  of  a  talk 
with  her. 

"  We  are  all  going  together  to  the  Gairsley  meeting  next  week, 
aren't  we  ?  I  am  so  glad  you  are  coming.  Aldous  will  do  his 
best." 

There  was  something  very  wanning  in  his  tone  to  her.  It  implied 
both  his  old  and  peculiar  friendship  for  Aldous,  and  his  eager  wish 
to  find  a  new  friend  in  her  —  to  adopt  her  into  their  comradeship. 
Something  very  winning,  too,  in  his  wliole  personality  —  in  the 
loosely  knit,  neiwous  figure,  the  irregular  charm  of  feature,  the 
benignant  eyes  and  brow  —  even  m  the  suggestions  of  physical 
delicacy,  cheerfully  concealed,  yet  none  the  less  evident.  The 
whole  balance  of  Marcella's  temper  changed  in  some  sort  as  she 
talked  to  him.  She  found  herself  wanting  to  please,  instead  of 
wanting  to  conquer,  to  make  an  effect. 

"You  have  just  come  from  the  village,  I  think?"  said  Hallin. 
"  Aldous  tells  me  you  take  a  great  interest  in  the  people  ?  " 

He  looked  at  her  kindly,  the  look  of  one  who  saw  all  his  fellow- 
creatures  nobly,  as  it  were,  and  to  their  best  advantage. 

"  One  may  take  an  interest,"  she  said,  in  a  dissatisfied  voice, 
poking  at  the  snow  crystals  on  the  road  before  her  with  the  thorn- 
stick  she  carried,  "  but  one  can  do  so  little.  And  I  don't  know 
anything ;  not  even  what  I  want  myself." 

"  No  ;  one  can  do  next  to  nothing.  And  systems  and  theories 
don't  matter,  or,  at  least,  very  little.  Yet,  when  you  and  Aldous 
are  together,  there  will  be  more  chance  of  doing,  for  you  than  for 
most.  You  will  be  two  happy  and  powerful  people  !  His  power 
will  be  doubled  by  happiness ;  I  have  always  known  that." 

Marcella  was  seized  with  shyness,  looked  away,  and  did  not  know 
what  to  answer.  At  last  she  said  abruptly  —  her  head  still  turned 
to  the  woods  on  her  left- — 

"Are  you  sure  he  is  going  to  be  happy?" 

"Shall  I  produce  his  letter  to  me?"  he  said,  bantering  —  "or 
letters?  For  I  knew  a  great  deal  about  you  before  October  5" 
(their  engagement-day),  "  and  suspected  what  was  going  to  hap- 
pen long  before  Aldous  did.  No ;  after  all,  no  !  Those  letters  are 
my  last  bit  of  the  old  friendship.  But  the  new  began  that  same 
day,"  he  hastened  to  add,  smiling :  "  It  may  be  richer  than  the 
old;  I  don't  know.     It  depends  on  you." 

"  I  don't  think  —  I  am  a  very  satisfactory  friend,"  said  Mar- 
cella, stni  awkward,  and  speaking  with  difficulty. 


178  MARCELLA  book  n 

"A¥ell,  let  me  find  out,  won't  you?  I  don't  think  Aldous  would 
call  me  exacting.  I  believe  he  would  give  me  a  decent  character, 
though  I  tease  him  a  good  deal.  You  must  let  me  tell  you  some- 
time what  he  did  for  me  —  what  he  was  to  me  —  at  Cambridge? 
I  shall  always  feel  sorry  for  Aldous's  wife  that  she  did  not  know 
him  at  college." 

A  shock  went  through  IMarcella  at  the  word  —  that  tremendous 
word  —  wife.  As  Hallin  said  it,  there  was  something  intolerable 
in  the  claim  it  made  ! 

"  I  should  like  you  to  tell  me,"  she  said  faintly.  Then  she  added, 
with  more  energy  and  a  sudden  advance  of  friendliness,  "  But  you 
really  must  come  in  and  rest.  Aldous  told  me  he  thought  the 
walk  from  the  Court  was  too  much  for  you.  Shall  we  take  this 
short  way?" 

And  she  opened  a  little  gate  leading  to  a  door  at  the  side  of  the 
house  through  the  Cedar  Garden.  The  narrow  path  only  admitted 
of  single  file,  and  Hallin  followed  her,  admiring  her  tall  youth  and 
the  fine  black  and  white  of  her  head  and  cheek  as  she  turned 
every  now  and  then  to  speak  to  him.  He  realised  more  vividly 
than  before  the  rare,  exciting  elements  of  her  beauty,  and  the 
truth  in  Aldous's  comparison  of  her  to  one  of  the  tall  women  in 
a  Florentine  fresco.  But  he  felt  himself  a  good  deal  baffled  by 
her,  all  the  same.  In  some  ways,  so  far  as  any  man  who  is  not 
the  lover  can  understand  such  things,  he  understood  why  Aldous 
had  fallen  in  love  with  her ;  in  others,  she  bore  no  relation  what- 
ever to  the  woman  his  thoughts  had  been  shaping  all  these  years 
as  his  friend's  fit  and  natural  wife. 

Luncheon  passed  as  easily  as  any  meal  could  be  expected  to  do, 
of  which  Mr.  Boyce  was  partial  president.  During  the  preceding 
month  or  two  he  had  definitely  assumed  the  character  of  an  invalid, 
although  to  inexperienced  eyes  like  Marcella's  there  did  not  seem 
to  be  very  much  the  matter.  But,  whatever  the  facts  might  be, 
Mr.  Boyce's  adroit  use  of  them  had  made  a  great  difference  to  his 
position  in  his  own  household.  His  wife's  sarcastic  freedom  of 
manner  was  less  apparent ;  and  he  was  obviously  less  in  awe  of 
her.  Meanwhile  he  was  as  sore  as  ever  towards  the  Raeburns,  and 
no  more  inclined  to  take  any  particular  pleasure  in  Marcella's 
prospects,  or  to  make  himself  agreeable  towards  his  future  son-in- 
law.  He  and  i\Irs.  Boyce  had  been  formally  asked  in  Miss  Rae- 
bm-n's  best  hand  to  the  Court  ball,  but  he  had  at  once  snappishly 
announced  his  intention  of  staying  at  home.  Marcella  sometimes 
looked  back  with  astonishment  to  his  eagerness  for  social  notice 
when  they  first  came  to  Mellor.  Clearly  the  vising  irritability  of 
illness  had  made  it  doubly  unpleasant  to  him  to  owe  all  that  he 


CHAP,  V  MARCELLA  179 

was  likely  to  get  on  that  score  to  his  own  daughter;  and,  more- 
over, he  had  learnt  to  occupy  himself  more  continuously  on  his 
own  land  and  with  his  own  affairs. 

As  to  the  state  of  the  village,  neither  Marcella's  entreaties  nor 
reproaches  had  any  effect  upon  him.  When  it  appeai^ed  certain 
that  he  would  be  summoned  for  some  specially  flagrant  piece  of 
neglect  he  would  spend  a  few  shillings  on  repairs;  otherwise  not  a 
farthing.  All  that  filial  softening  towards  him  of  which  Marcella 
had  been  conscious  in  the  early  autumn  had  died  away  in  her. 
She  said  to  herself  now  plainly  and  bitterly  that  it  was  a  misfort- 
une to  belong  to  him ;  and  she  would  have  pitied  her  mother  most 
heartily  if  her  mother  had  ever  allowed  her  the  smallest  expression 
of  such  a  feeling.  As  it  was,  she  was  left  to  wonder  and  chafe  at 
her  mother's  new-born  mildness. 

In  the  drawing-room,  after  luncheon,  Hallin  came  up  to  Marcella 
in  a  corner,  and,  smiling,  drew  from  his  pocket  a  folded  sheet  of 
foolscap. 

"  I  made  Aldous  give  me  his  speech  to  show  you,  before  to-mor- 
row night,"  he  said.  "  He  would  hardly  let  me  take  it,  said  it  was 
stupid,  and  that  you  would  not  agree  with  it.  But  I  wanted  you 
to  see  how  he  does  these  things.  He  speaks  now,  on  an  average, 
two  or  three  times  a  week.  Each  time,  even  for  an  audience  of  a 
score  or  two  of  village  folk,  he  writes  out  what  he  has  to  say. 
Then  he  speaks  it  entirely  without  notes.  In  this  way,  though  he 
has  not  much  natural  gift,  he  is  making  himself  gradually  an 
effective  and  practical  speaker.  The  danger  with  him,  of  course, 
is  lest  he  should  be  over-subtle  and  over-critical  —  not  simple  and 
popular  enough."  • 

Marcella  took  the  paper  half  unwillingly  and  glanced  over  it  in 
silence. 

"  You  are  sorry  he  is  a  Tory,  is  that  it?  "  he  said  to  her,  but  in 
a  lower  voice,  and  sitting  down  beside  her. 

Mrs.  Boyce,  just  catching  the  words  from  where  she  sat  with 
her  work,  at  the  further  side  of  the  room,  looked  up  with  a  double 
wonder  —  wonder  at  Marcella's  folly,  wonder  still  more  at  the 
deference  with  which  men  like  Aldous  Raeburn  and  Hallin  treated 
her.  It  was  inevitable,  of  course  —  youth  and  beauty  rule  the 
world.  But  the  mother,  under  no  spell  herself,  and  of  keen,  cool 
wit,  resented  the  intellectual  confusion,  the  lowering  of  standards 
involved. 

"-I  suppose  so,"  said  Marcella,  stupidly,  in  answer  to  Hallin's 
question,  fidgeting  the  papers  under  her  hand.  Then  his  curious 
confessor's  gift,  his  quiet  questioning  look  with  its  sensitive  human 
interest  to  all  before  him,  told  upon  her. 

"  I  am  sorry  he  does  not  look  further  ahead,  to  the  great  changes 


180  MARCELLA  book  n 

that  must  come,"  she  added  hurriedly.  "  This  is  all  about  details, 
palliatives.     I  want  him  to  be  more  impatient." 

"  Great  political  changes  you  mean  ?  " 

She  nodded  ;  then  added  — 

"But  only  for  the  sake,  of  course,  of  great  social  changes  to 
come  after." 

He  pondered  a  moment. 

"  Aldous  has  never  believed  in  qreat  changes  coming  suddenly. 
He  constantly  looks  upon  me  as  rash  in  the  things  /  adopt  and 
believe  in.  But  for  the  contriving,  unceasing  effort  of  every  day 
to  make  that  part  of  the  social  machine  in  which  a  man  finds  him- 
self work  better  and  more  equitably,  I  have  never  seen  Aldous's 
equal  —  for  the  steady  passion,  the  persistence,  of  it." 

She  looked  up.  His  pale  face  had  taken  to  itself  glow  and  fire ; 
his  eyes  were  full  of  strenuous,  nay,  severe  expression.  Her  fool- 
ish pride  rebelled  a  little. 

"  Of  course,  I  haven't  seen  much  of  that  yet,"  she  said  slowly. 

His  look  for  a  moment  was  indignant,  incredulous,  then  melted 
into  a  charming  eagerness. 

"  But  you  will  1  naturally  you  will !  —  see  everything.  I  hug 
myself  sometimes  now  for  pure  pleasure  that  some  one  besides  his 
grandfather  and  I  will  know  what  Aldous  is  and  does.  Oh !  the 
people  on  the  estate  know;  his  neighbours  are  beginning  to  know; 
and  now  that  he  is  going  into  Parliament,  the  country  will  know 
some  day,  if  work  and  high  intelligence  have  the  power  I  believe. 
Bixt  T  am  impatient!  In  the  first  place — I  may  say  it  to  you, 
Miss  Boyce !  —  I  want  Aldous  to  come  out  of  that  manner  of  his  to 
strangers,  which  is  the  only  bit  of  the  true  Tory  in  him ;  you  can 
get  rid  of  it,  no  one  else  can  —  How  long  shall  I  give  you?  —  And 
in  the  next,  I  want  the  world  not  to  be  wasting  itself  on  baser 
stuff  when  it  might  be  praising  Aldous  !  " 

"  Does  he  mean  Mr.  Wharton  ? "  thought  Marcella,  quickly. 
"  But  this  world  —  our  world  —  hates  him  and  runs  him  down." 

But  she  had  no  time  to  answer,  for  the  door  opened  to  admit 
Aldous,  flushed  and  bright-eyed,  looking  round  the  room  immedi- 
ately for  her,  and  bearing  a  parcel  in  his  left  hand. 

"  Does  she  love  him  at  all  ? "  thought  Hallin,  with  a  nervous 
stiffening  of  all  his  lithe  frame,  as  he  walked  away  to  talk  to  Mrs. 
Boyce,  "  or,  in  spite  of  all  her  fine  talk,  is  she  just  marrying  him 
for  his  money  and  position  1 " 

Meanwhile,  Aldous  had  drawn  Marcella  into  the  Stone  Parlour 
and  was  standing  by  the  fire  with  his  arm  covetously  round  her. 

"  I  have  lost  two  hours  with  you  I  might  have  had,  just  because 
a  tiresome  man  missed  his  train.  Make  up  for  it  by  liking  these 
pretty  things  a  little,  for  my  sake  and  my  mother's." 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  181 

He  opened  the  jeweller's  case,  took  out  the  fine  old  pearls  — 
necklace  and  bracelets  —  it  contained,  and  put  them  into  her  hand. 
They  were  his  first  considerable  gift  to  her,  and  had  been  chosen 
for  association's  sake,  seeing  that  his  mother  had  also  worn  them 
before  her  marriage. 

She  flushed  first  of  all  with  a  natural  pleasure,  the  girl  delight- 
ing in  her  gaud.  Then  she  allowed  herself  to  be  kissed,  which 
was,  indeed,  inevitable.  Finally  she  turned  thein  over  and  over 
in  her  hands  ;  and  he  began  to  be  puzzled  by  her. 

"  They  are  much  too  good  for  me.  1  don't  know  whether  you 
ought  to  give  me  such  precious  things.  I  am  dreadfully  careless 
and  forgetful.     Mamma  always  says  so." 

"I  shall  want  you  to  wear  them  so  often  that  you  won't  have  a 
chance  of  forgetting  them,"  he  said  gaily. 

"  Will  you  ?  Will  you  want  me  to  wear  them  so  often  ? "  she 
asked,  in  an  odd  voice.  "  Anyway,  I  should  like  to  have  just  these, 
and  nothing  else.  I  am  glad  that  we  know  nobody,  and  have  no 
friends,  and  that  I  shall  have  so  few  presents.  You  won't  give  me 
many  jewels,  will  you  ?  "  she  said  suddenly,  insistently,  turning  to 
him.  "  I  shouldn't  know  what  to  do  with  them.  I  used  to  have  a 
magpie's  wish  for  them;  and  now  —  I  don't  know,  but  they  don't 
give  me  pleasure.  Not  these,  of  course  —  not  these !  "  she  added 
hurriedly,  taking  them  up  and  beginning  to  fasten  the  bracelets 
on  her  wrists. 

Aldous  looked  perplexed. 

"  My  darling ! "  he  said,  half  laughing,  and  in  the  tone  of  the 
apologist,  "You  know  we  have  such  a  lot  of  things.  And  I  am 
afraid  my  grandfather  will  want  to  give  them  all  to  you.  Need 
one  think  so  much  about  it?  It  isn't  as  though  they  had  to  be 
bought  fresh.  They  go  with  pretty  gowns,  don't  they,  and  other 
people  like  to  see  them  V  " 

"No,  but  it's  what  they  imply  —  the  wealth  —  the  luuHiig  so 
much  while  other  people  want  so  much.  Things  begin  to  oppress 
me  so  !  "  she  broke  out,  instinctively  moving  away  from  him  that 
she  might  express  herself  with  more  energy.  "  I  like  luxuries  so 
desperately,  and  when  I  get  them  I  seem  to  myself  now  the  vul- 
garest  creature  alive,  who  has  no  right  to  an  opinion  or  an  enthu- 
siasm, or  anything  else  worth  having.  Y^ou  must  jiot  let  me  like 
them — you  must  help  me  not  to  care  about  them  !  " 

Raeburn's  eye  as  he  looked  at  her  was  tenderness  itself.  He 
could  of  course  neither  mock  her,  nor  put  what  she  said  aside. 
This  question  she  had  raised,  this  most  thorny  of  all  the  personal 
questions  of  the  present  —  the  ethical  relation  of  the  individual  to 
the  World's  Fair  and  its  vanities  —  was,  as  it  happened,  a  question 
far  m.ore  sternly  and  robustly  real  to  him  than  it  was  to  her. 


182  MAECELLA  book  ii 

Every  word  in  his  few  sentences,  as  they  stood  talking  by  the  fire, 
bore  on  it  for  a  practised  ear  the  signs  of  a  long  wrestle  of  the 
heart. 

But  to  Marcella  it  sounded  tame ;  her  ear  was  haunted  by  the 
fragments  of  another  tune  which  she  seemed  to  be  perpetually  try- 
ing to  recall  and  piece  together.  Aldous's  slow  minor  made  her 
impatient. 

He  turned  presently  to  ask  her  what  she  had  been  doing  with 
her  morning  —  asking  her  with  a  certain  precision,  and  observing 
her  attentively.  She  replied  that  she  had  been  showing  Mr.  Whar- 
ton the  house,  that  he  had  walked  down  with  her  to  the  village,  and 
was  gone  to  a  meeting  at  Widrington.  Then  she  remarked  that 
he  was  very  good  company,  and  very  clever,  but  dreadfully  sure  of 
his  own  opinion.     Finally  she  laughed,  and  said  drily : 

"  There  will  be  no  putting  him  down  all  the  same.  I  haven't 
told  anybody  yet,  but  he  saved  my  life  this  morning." 

Aldous  caught  her  wrists. 

"  Saved  your  life !     Dear  —  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

She  explained,  giving  the  little  incident  all  —  perhaps  more  than 
—  its  dramatic  du.e.  He  listened  with  evident  annoyance,  and 
stood  pondering  when  she  came  to  an  end. 

"  So  I  shall  be  expected  to  take  quite  a  different  view  of  him 
henceforward?"  he  enquired  at  last,  looking  round  at  her,  with  a 
very  forced  smile. 

"  I  am  sm-e  I  don't  know  that  it  matters  to  him  what  view  any- 
body takes  of  him,"  she  cried,  flushing.  "  He  certainly  takes  the 
frankest  views  of  other  people,  and  expresses  them." 

And  while  she  played  with  the  pearls  in  their  box  she  gave  a 
vivid  account  of  her  morning's  talk  with  the  Radical  candidate  for 
West  Brookshire,  and  of  their  village  expedition. 

There  was  a  certain  relief  in  describing  the  scorn  with  which 
her  acts  and  ideals  had  been  treated ;  and,  underneath,  a  woman's 
curiosity  as  to  how  Aldous  would  take  it. 

"  1  don't  know  what  business  he  had  to  express  himself  so 
frankly,"  said  Aldous,  turning  to  the  fire  and  carefully  putting  it 
together.  "  He  hardly  knows  you  —  it  was,  I  think,  an  inqjerti- 
nence." 

He  stood  upright,  with  his  back  to  the  hearth,  a  strong,  capable, 
frowning  Englishman,  very  much  on  his  dignity.  Such  a  moment 
must  surely  have  become  him  in  the  eyes  of  a  girl  that  loved  him. 
Marcella  proved  restive  under  it. 

"  No ;  it's  very  natural,"  she  protested  quickly.  "  When  people 
are  so  much  in  earnest  they  don't  stop  to  think  about  impertinence ! 
I  never  met  any  one  who  dug  up  one's  thoughts  by  the  roots  as  he 
does." 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  183 

Aldous  "was  startled  by  her  flush,  her  sudden  attitude  of  opposi- 
tion. His  intermittent  lack  of  readiness  overtook  him,  and  there 
was  an  awkward  silence.  Then,  pulling  himself  together  with  a 
strong  hand,  he  left  the  subject  and  began  to  talk  of  her  straw- 
plaiting  scheme,  of  the  Gairsley  meeting,  and  of  Hallin.  But  in 
the  middle  Marcella  unexpectedly  said : 

"I  wish  you  would  tell  nie,  seriously,  what  reasons  you  have  for 
not  liking  Mr.  Wharton?  —  other  than  politics,  I  mean?  " 

Her  black  eyes  fixed  him  with  a  keen  insistence. 

He  was  sUent  a  moment  with  surprise ;  then  he  said  : 

"  I  had  rather  not  rake  up  old  scores." 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders,  and  he  was  roused  to  come  and  put 
his  arm  round  her  again,  she  shrinking  and  tmuiing  her  reddened 
face  away. 

"  Deai-est,"  he  said,  "  you  shall  put  me  in  charity  with  all  the 
world.  But  the  worst  of  it  is,"  he  added,  half  laughing,  "that  I 
don't  see  how  I  am  to  help  disliking  him  doubly  henceforward  for 
having  had  the  luck  to  i^ut  that  fire  out  instead  of  me  !  " 


CHAPTER  VI 

A  FEW  busy  and  eventful  weeks,  days  never  forgotten  by  Mar- 
cella in  after  years,  passed  qiiickly  by.  Parliament  met  in  the  third 
week  of  January.  Ministers,  according  to  universal  expectation, 
found  themselves  confronted  by  a  damaging  amendment  on  the 
Address,  and  were  defeated  by  a  small  majority.  A  dissolution 
and  appeal  to  the  country  followed  immediately,  and  the  meetings 
and  speech-makings,  already  active  throughout  the  constituencies, 
wei"e  carried  forward  with  redoubled  energy.  In  the  Tudley  End 
division,  Aldous  Raeburn  was  fighting  a  somewhat  younger  oppo- 
nent of  the  same  country-gentleman  stock  —  a  former  fag  indeed  of 
his  at  Eton  —  whose  zeal  and  fluency  gave  him  plenty  to  do.  Under 
ordinary  circumstances  Aldous  would  have  thrown  himself  with 
all  his  heart  and  mind  into  a  contest  which  involved  for  him  the 
most  stimulating  of  possibilities,  personal  and  i^ublic.  But,  as 
these  days  went  over,  he  found  his  appetite  for  the  struggle  flag- 
ging, and  was  harassed  rather  than  spurred  by  his  adversary's 
activity.  The  real  truth  was  that  he  could  not  see  enough  of  Mar- 
cella !  A  curious  uncertainty  and  unreality,  moreover,  seemed  to 
have  crept  into  some  of  their  relations ;  and  it  had  begun  to  gall 
and  fever  him  that  Wharton  should  be  staying  there,  week  after 
week,  beside  her,  in  her  father's  house,  able  to  spend  all  the  free 
intervals  of  the  fight  in  her  society,  strengthening  an  influence 
which   Raeburn's  pride  and  delicacy  had  hardly  allowed  him  as 


184  MAECELLA  book  ii 

yet,  in  spite  of  his  instinctive  jealousy  from  the  beginning,  to 
take  into  his  thoughts  at  all,  but  which  was  now  apparent,  not 
only  to  himself  but  to  others. 

In  vain  did  he  spend  every  possible  hour  at  Mellor  he  could 
snatch  from  a  conflict  in  which  liis  party,  his  grandfather,  and  his 
own  personal  fortunes  were  all  deeply  interested.  In  vain  —  with 
a  tardy  instinct  that  it  was  to  Mr.  Boyce's  dislike  of  himself,  and 
to  the  wilful  fancy  for  Wharton's  society  which  this  dislike  had 
laromoted,  that  Wharton's  long  stay  at  Mellor  was  largely  owing — 
did  Aldous  subdue  himself  to  propitiations  and  amenities  wholly 
foreign  to  a  strong  character  long  accustomed  to  rule  without 
thinking  about  it.  Mr.  Boyce  showed  himself  not  a  whit  less  par- 
tial to  Wharton  than  before;  pressed  him  at  least  twice  in  Rae- 
burn's  hearing  to  make  Mellor  his  headquarters  so  long  as  it  suited 
him,  and  behaved  with  an  irritable  malice  with  regard  to  some 
of  the  details  of  the  wedding  arrangements,  which  neither  Mrs. 
Boyce's  indignation  nor  Marcella's  discomfort  and  annoyance 
could  restrain.  Clearly  there  was  in  him  a  strong  consciousness 
that  by  his  attentions  to  the  Radical  candidate  he  was  asserting 
his  independence  of  the  Raeburns,  and  nothing  for  the  moment 
seemed  to  be  more  of  an  object  with  him,  even  though  his  daugh- 
ter was  going  to  marry  the  Raeburns'  heir.  Meanwhile,  "Wharton 
was  always  ready  to  walk  or  chat  or  play  billiards  with  his  host  in 
the  intervals  of  his  own  campaign ;  and  his  society  had  thus  come 
to  count  considerably  among  the  scanty  daily  pleasures  of  a  sickly 
and  disappointed  man.  Mrs.  Boyce  did  not  like  her  guest,  and 
took  no  pains  to  disguise  it,  least  of  all  from  Wharton.  But  it 
seemed  to  be  no  longer  possible  for  her  to  take  the  vigorous  meas- 
ures she  would  once  have  taken  to  get  rid  of  him. 

In  vain,  too,  did  Miss  Raeburn  do  her  best  for  the  nephew  to 
whom  she  was  still  devoted,  in  spite  of  his  deplorable  choice  of  a 
wife.  She  took  in  the  situation  as  a  whole  probably  sooner  than 
anybody  else,  and  she  instantly  made  heroic  eiforts  to  see  more  of 
JNIarcella,  to  get  her  to  come  oftener  to  the  Court,  and  in  many 
various  ways  to  procure  the  poor  deluded  Aldous  more  of  his 
betrothed's  society.  She  paid  auany  chattering  and  fussy  visits  to 
Mellor  —  visits  which  chafed  Marcella  —  and  before  long,  indeed, 
roused  a  certain  suspicion  in  the  girl's  wilful  mind.  Between  Miss 
Raeburn  and  Mrs.  Boyce  there  was  a  curious  understanding.  It 
was  always  tacit,  and  never  amounted  to  friendship),  stiU  less  to 
intimacy.  But  it  often  yielded  a  certain  melancholy  consolation 
to  Aldous  Raeburn's  great-aunt.  It  was  clear  to  her  that  thi^ 
strange  mother  was  just  as  much  convinced  as  she  was  that  Aldous 
was  making  a  great  mistake,  and  that  JNIarceUa  was  not  worthy  of 
him.     But  the  engagement  being  there  —  a  fact  not  apparently  to 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  ,     185 

be  undone  —  both  ladies  showed  themselves  disposed  to  take  pains 
with  it,  to  protect  it  against  aggression.  Mrs.  Boyce  found  her- 
self becoming  more  of  a  chaperon  than  she  had  ever  yet  professed 
to  be ;  and  Miss  Raeburn,  as  we  have  said,  made  repeated  efforts 
to  capture  Marcella  and  hold  her  for  Aldous,  her  lawful  master. 

But  Marcella  proved  exti'emely  difficult  to  manage.  In  the  first 
place  she  was  a  young  person  of  many  engagements.  Her  village 
scheme  absorbed  a  gTeat  deal  of  time.  She  was  deep  in  a  varied 
correspondence,  in  the  engagement  of  teachers,  the  provision  of 
work-rooms,  the  collecting  and  registering  of  workers,  the  organ- 
isation of  local  committees  and  so  forth.  New  sides  of  the  girl's 
character,  new  capacities  and  capabilities  were  coming  out ;  new 
forms  of  her  natural  power  over  her  fellows  were  developing  every 
day  ;  she  was  beginning,  under  the  incessant  stimulus  of  Wharton's 
talk,  to  read  and  think  on  social  and  economic  subjects,  with  some 
system  and  coherence,  and  it  was  evident  that  she  took  a  passion- 
ate mental  jileasure  in  it  all.  And  the  more  pleasure  these  activi- 
ties gave  her,  the  less  she  had  to  spare  for  those  accompaniments 
of  her  engagement  and  her  position  that  was  to  be,  which  once, 
as  Mrs.  Boyce's  sharp  eyes  perceived,  had  been  quite  normally 
attractive  to  her. 

"  Why  do  you  take  up  her  time  so,  with  all  these  things  ?  "  said 
Miss  Raeburn  impatiently  to  Lady  Winterbourne,  who  was  now 
Marcella's  obedient  helper  in  everything  she  chose  to  initiate. 
"She  doesn't  care  for  anything  she  ought  to  care  about  at  this 
time,  and  Aldous  sees  nothing  of  her.  As  for  her  trousseau,  Mrs. 
Boyce  declai-es  she  has  had  to  do  it  all.  Marcella  won't  even  go 
up  to  London  to  have  her  wedding-dress  fitted !  " 

Lady  Wintei'bourne  looked  up  bewildered. 

"But  I  can't  make  her  go  and  have  her  wedding-dress  fitted, 
Agneta  !  And  I  always  feel  you  don't  know  what  a  fine  creature 
she  is.  You  don't  really  appreciate  her.  It's  splendid  the  ideas 
she  has  about  this  work,  and  the  way  she  throws  herself  into  it." 

"I  dare  say!"  said  Miss  Raeburn,  indignantly.  "That's  just 
what  I  object  to.  Wliy  can't  she  throw  herself  into  being  in  love 
with  Aldous!  That's  her  business,  I  imagine,  just  now  —  if  she 
were  a  young  woman  like  anybody  else  one  had  ever  seen  —  in- 
stead of  holding  aloof  from  everything  he  does,  and  never  being 
there  when  he  wants  her.  Oh  I  I  have  no  patience  with  her. 
But,  of  course,  I  must  — "  said  Miss  Raeburn,  hastily  correcting 
herself  —  "  of  course,  I  must  have  patience." 

"  It  will  all  come  right,  I  am  sure,  when  they  are  married,"  said 
Lady  Winterbourne,  rather  helplessly. 

"  That's  just  what  my  brother  says,"  cried  Miss  Raeburn,  exas- 
perated.   "  He  won't  hear  a  word  —  declares  she  is  odd  and  original, 


186  MAKCELLA  book  ii 

and  that  Aldous  will  soon  know  how  to  manage  her.  It's  all  very 
well;  nowadays  men  don't  manage  their  wives;  that's  all  gone 
with  the  rest.  And  I  am  sure,  my  dear,  if  she  behaves  after  she 
is  married  as  she  is  doing  now,  with  that  most  objectionable  pei'- 
son  Mr.  Wharton — walking,  and  talking,  and  taking  up  his  ideas, 
and  going  to  his  meetings  —  she'll  be  a  handful  for  any  husband." 

"  Mr.  Wharton ! "  said  Lady  Winterbourne,  astonished.  Her 
absent  black  eyes,  the  eyes  of  the  dreamer,  of  the  person  who 
lives  by  a  few  intense  alfections,  saw  little  or  nothing  of  what  was 
going  on  immediately  under  them.  "  Oh !  but  that  is  because  he 
is  staying  in  the  house,  and  he  is  a  Socialist ;  she  calls  herself 
one  —  " 

"My  rfear,"  said  Miss  Raeburn,  interrupting  emphatically;  "if 
—  you  —  had  —  now  —  an  unmarried  daughter  at  home  —  engaged 
or  not  —  would  you  care  to  have  Harry  Wharton  hanging  about 
after  her  ?  " 

"  Harry  Wharton?"  said  the  other,  pondering;  "he  is  the  Levens' 
coiisin,  isn't  he?  he  used  to  stay  with  them.  I  don't  think  I  have 
seen  him  since  then.  But  yes,  I  do  remember ;  there  was  some- 
thing —  something  disagreeable  ?  " 

She  stopped  with  a  hesitating,  interrogative  air.  ^N'o  one  talked 
less  scandal,  no  one  put  the  uglinesses  of  life  away  from  her  with 
a  hastier  hand  than  Lady  Winterbourne.  She  was  one  of  the  most 
consistent  of  moral  epicures. 

"Yes,  extremely  disagreeable,"  said  Mis.s.  Raeburn,  sitting  bolt 
upright.  "The  man  has  no  principles  —  never  had  any,  since  he 
was  a  child  in  petticoats.  I  know  Aldous  thinks  him  unscrupu- 
lous in  politics  and  everything  else.  And  then,  just  when  you  are 
worked  to  death,  and  have  hardly  a  moment  for  your  own  affairs, 
to  have  a  man  of  that  type  always  at  hand  to  spend  odd  times 
with  yovir  lady  love  —  flattering  her,  engaging  her  in  his  ridiculous 
schemes,  encouraging  her  in  all  the  extravagances  she  has  got  her 
head  twice  too  full  of  already,  setting  her  against  your  own  ideas 
and  the  life  she  will  have  to  live  —  you  will  admit  that  it  is  not 
exactly  soothing !  " 

"  Poor  Aldous !  "  said  Lady  Winterbourne,  thoughtfully,  look- 
ing far  ahead  with  her  odd  look  of  absent  rigidity,  which  had  in 
reality  so  little  to  do  with  a  character  essentially  soft ;  "  but  you 
see  he  did  know  all  about  her  opinions.  And  I  don't  think  —  no, 
I  really  don't  think —  I  could  speak  to  her." 

In  truth,  this  woman  of  nearly  seventy  —  old  in  years,  but 
wholly  young  in  temperament  —  was  altogether  under  Marcella's 
spell  —  more  at  ease  with  her  already  than  with  most  of  her  own 
children,  finding  in  her  satisfaction  for  a  hundred  instincts,  sup- 
pressed or  starved  by  her  own  environment,  fascinated  by  the  gu'l's 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  187 

friendship,  and  eagerly  grateful  for  her  visits.  Miss  Raeburn 
thought  it  all  both  incomprehensible  and  silly. 

"  Apparently  no  one  can !  "  cried  that  lady  in  answer  to  her 
friend's  demm-rer;  "is  all  the  world  afraid  of  her?" 

And  she  departed  in  wrath.  But  she  knew,  nevertheless,  that 
she  was  just  as  much  afraid  of  Marcella  as  anybody  else.  In  her 
own  sphere  at  the  Court,  or  in  points  connected  with  wliat  was 
due  to  the  family,  or  to  Lord  Maxwell  especially,  as  the  head  of 
it,  this  short,  capable  old  lady  could  hold  her  own  amply  with 
Aldous's  betrothed,  could  maintain,  indeed,  a  sharp  and  caustic 
dignity,  which  kept  Marcella  very  much  in  order.  Miss  Raeburn, 
on  the  defensive,  was  strong ;  but  when  it  came  to  attacking  Mar- 
cella's  own  ideas  and  proceedings,  Lord  Maxwell's  sister  became 
shrewdly  conscious  of  her  own  weaknesses.  She  had  no  wish  to 
measure  her  wits  on  any  general  field  with  Marcella's.  She  said 
to  herself  that  the  girl  was  too  clever  and  would  talk  you  down. 

Meanwhile,  things  went  untowardly  in  various  ways.  Marcella 
disciplined  herself  before  the  Gairsley  meeting,  and  went  thither 
resolved  to  give  Aldous  as  much  sympathy  as  she  could.  But  the 
performance  only  repelled  a  mind  over  which  Wharton  was  every 
day  gaining  more  influence.  There  was  a  portly  baronet  in  the 
chair ;  there  were  various  Primrose  Dames  on  the  platform  and 
among  the  audience  ;  there  was  a  considerable  representation  of 
clergy ;  and  the  labourers  present  seemed  to  Marcella  the  most 
obsequious  of  their  kind.  Aldous  spoke  well  —  or  so  the  audience 
seemed  to  think ;  but  she  could  feel  no  enthusiasm  for  anything 
that  he  said.  She  gathered  that  he  advocated  a  Government 
inspection  of  cottages,  more  stringent  precautions  against  cattle 
disease,  better  technical  instruction,  a  more  abundant  provision  of 
allotments  and  small  freeholds,  &c. ;  and  he  said  many  cordial  and 
wise-sounding  things  in  praise  of  a  progress  which  should  go  safely 
and  wisely  from  step  to  step,  and  run  no  risks  of  dangerous  reac- 
tion. But  the  assumptions  on  which,  as  she  told  herself  rebel- 
liously,  it  all  went — that  the  rich  and  the  educated  must  rule,  and 
the  poor  obey ;  that  existing  classes  and  rights,  the  forces  of  indi- 
vidualism and  competition,  must  and  would  go  on  pretty  much  as 
they  were ;  that  great  houses  and  great  people,  the  English  land 
and  game  system,  and  all  the  rest  of  our  odious  class  paraphernalia 
were  in  the  order  of  the  universe;  these  ideas,  conceived  as  the 
furniture  of  Aldous's  mind,  threw  her  again  into  a  ferment  of 
passionate  opposition.  And  when  the  noble  baronet  in  the  chair 
—  to  her  eye,  a  pompous,  frock-coated  stick,  sacrificing  his  after- 
dinner  sleep  for  once,  that  he  might  the  more  effectually  secure  it 
in  the  future  —  proposed  a  vote  of  confidence  in  the  Conservative 
candidate ;  when  the  vote  was  carried  with  much  cheering  and 


188  MARCELLA  book  ii 

rattling  of  feet ;  when  tl>e  Primrose  Dames  on  the  platform  smiled 
graciously  down  upon  the  meeting  as  one  smiles  at  good  children 
in  their  moments  of  pretty  behaviour;  and  when,  finally,  scores  of 
toil-stained  labourers,  young  and  old,  went  up  to  have  a  word  and 
a  hand-shake  with  "  Muster  Raeburn,"  Marcella  held  herself  aloof 
and  cold,  with  a  look  that  threatened  sarcasm  should  she  be  spoken 
to.  Miss  Raeburn,  glancing  fm'tively  round  at  her,  was  outraged 
anew  by  her  expression. 

"  She  will  be  a  thorn  in  all  our  sides,"  thought  that  lady. 
"  Aldous  is  a  fool !  —  a  poor  dear  noble  misguided  fool !  " 

Then  on  the  way  home,  she  and  Aldous  drove  together.  Mar- 
cella tried  to  argue,  gTew  vehement,  and  said  bitter  things  for 
the  sake  of  victory,  till  at  last  Aldous,  tired,  worried,  and  deeply 
wounded,  could  bear  it  no  longer. 

"  Let  it  be,  dear,  let  it  be  !  "  he  entreated,  snatching  at  her  hand 
as  they  rolled  along  through  a  stormy  night.  "  We  gi'ope  in  a  dark 
world — you  see  some  points  of  light  in  it,  I  see  others  —  won't  you 
give  me  credit  for  doing  what  I  can  —  seeing  what  I  can?  I  am 
sure  —  sure  —  you  will  find  it  easier  to  bear  with  differences  when 
we  are  quite  together  —  when  there  are  no  longer  all  these  hateful 
duties  and  engagements  —  and  persons  —  between  us." 

"  Persons  !     I  don't  know  what  you  mean  !  "  said  Marcella. 

Aldous  only  just  restrained  himself  in  time.  Out  of  sheer  fatigue 
and  slackness  of  nerve  he  had  been  all  but  betrayed  into  some 
angry  speech  on  the  subject  of  Wharton,  the  echoes  of  whose 
fantastic  talk,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  wei'e  always  hanging  about 
Mellor  when  he  went  there.  But  he  did  refrain,  and  was  thank- 
ful. That  he  was  indeed  jealous  and  disturbed,  that  he  had  been 
jealous  and  disturbed  from  the  moment  Harry  Wharton  had  set 
foot  in  Mellor,  he  hhnself  knew  quite  Avell.  But  to  play  the  jeal- 
ous part  in  public  was  more  than  the  Raeburn  pride  could  bear. 
There  was  the  dread,  too,  of  defining  the  situation  —  of  striking 
some  vulgar  irrevocable  note. 

So  he  parried  ]Marcella's  exclamation  by  asking  her  whether  she 
had  any  idea  how  many  human  hands  a  parliamentary  candidate 
had  to  shake  between  breakfast  and  bed;  and  then,  having  so 
slipped  into  another  tone,  he  tried  to  amuse  himself  and  her  by 
some  of  the  daily  humours  of  the  contest.  She  lent  herself  to  it 
and  laughed,  her  look  mostly  turned  away  from  him,  as  though 
she  were  following  the  light  of  the  carriage  lamps  as  it  slipped 
along  the  snow-laden  hedges,  her  hand  lying  limply  in  his.  But 
neither  were  really  gay.  His  soreness  of  mind  grew  as  in  the 
pauses  of  talk  he  came  to  realise  moi'e  exactly  the  failure  of  the 
evening — -of  his  very  successful  and  encouraging  meeting  —  from 
las  own  private  point  of  view. 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  189 

"Didn't  you  like  that  last  speech?"  he  broke  out  suddenly  — 
"  that  labourer's  speech  ?  I  thought  you  would.  It  was  entirely 
his  own  idea  —  nobody  asked  him  to  do  it." 

In  reality  Gairsley  represented  a  corner  of  the  estate  which 
Aldous  had  specially  made  his  own.  He  had  spent  much  labour 
and  thought  on  the  improvement  of  what  had  been  a  backward 
district,  and  in  particular  he  had  tried  a  small  profit-sharing 
experiment  upon  a  farm  there  which  he  had  taken  into  his  own 
hands  for  the  purpose.  Tlie  experiment  had  met  with  fail-  suc- 
cess, and  the  labourer  in  question,  who  was  one  of  the  workers  in 
it,  had  volunteered  some  approving  remarks  upon  it  at  the  meeting. 

"Oh!  it  was  very  proper  and  respectful!  "  said  Marcella,  hastily. 

The  carriage  rolled  on  some  yards  before  Aldous  replied.  Then 
he  spoke  in  a  drier  tone  than  he  had  ever  yet  used  to  her. 

"  You  do  it  injustice,  I  think.  The  man  is  perfectly  independent, 
and  an  honest  fellow.     I  was  grateful  to  him  for  what  he  said." 

"Of  course,  I  am  no  judge!"  cried  Marcella,  quickly  —  repent- 
antly. "  Why  did  you  ask  me  ?  I  saw  everji^hing  crooked,  I  sup- 
pose —  it  was  your  Primrose  Dames  —  they  got  upon  my  nerves. 
'Why  did  you  have  them?  I  didn't  mean  to  vex  and  hurt  you  —  I 
didn't  indeed  —  it  was  all  the  other  way  —  and  now  I  have." 

She  turned  upon  him  laughing,  but  also  half  crying,  as  he  could 
tell  by  the  flutter  of  her  breath. 

He  vowed  he  was  not  hurt,  and  once  more  changed  both  talk 
and  tone.  They  reached  the  drive's  end  without  a  word  of 
Wharton.  But  Marcella  went  to  bed  hating  herself,  and  Aldous, 
after  his  solitary  drive  home,  sat  up  long  and  late,  feverishly  pacing 
and  thinking. 

Then  next  evening  how  differently  things  fell  1 

Marcella,  having  spent  the  afternoon  at  the  Court,  hearing  all 
the  final  arrangements  for  the  ball,  and  bearing  with  Miss  Rae- 
burn  in  a  way  which  astonished  herself,  came  home  full  of  a  sense 
of  duty  done,  and  announced  to  her  mother  that  she  was  going  to 
Mr.  Wharton's  meeting  in  the  Baptist  chapel  that  evening. 

"  Unnecessary,  don't  you  think  ?  "  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  lifting  her 
eyebrows.     "  However,  if  you  go,  I  shall  go  with  you." 

Most  mothers,  dealing  with  a  girl  of  twenty-one,  under  the  circum- 
stances, would  have  said,  "  I  had  rather  you  stayed  at  home."  Mrs. 
Boyce  never  employed  locutions  of  this  kind.  She  recognised  with 
perfect  calmness  that  Marcella's  bringing  up,  and  especially  her 
independent  years  in  London,  had  made  it  impossible. 

Marcella  fidgeted. 

"  I  don't  know  why  you  should,  mamma.  Papa  will  be  sure  to 
want  you.     Of  course,  I  shall  take  Deacon." 


190  MARCELLA  book  ii 

"  Please  order  dinner  a  quarter  of  an  hour  earlier,  and  tell 
Deacon  to  bring  down  my  walking  things  to  the  hall,"  was  all  Mrs. 
Boyce  said  in  answer. 

Marcella  walked  upstairs  with  her  head  very  stiff.  So  her 
mother,  and  Miss  Raeburn  too,  thought  it  necessary  to  keep 
watch  on  her.  How  preposterous  !  She  thought  of  her  free  and 
easy  relations  with  her  Kensington  student-friends,  and  wondered 
when  a  more  reasonable  idea  of  the  relations  between  men  and 
women  would  begin  to  penetrate  English  country  society. 

Mr.  Boyce  talked  recklessly  of  going  too. 

"  Of  course,  I  know  he  will  spout  seditious  nonsense,"  he  said 
irritably  to  his  wife,  "  but  it's  the  fellow's  power  of  talk  that  is  so 
astonishing.     He  isn't  troubled  with  your  Raeburn  heaviness." 

Marcella  came  into  the  room  as  the  discussion  was  going  on. 

"  If  papa  goes,"  she  said  in  an  undertone  to  her  mother  as  she 
passed  her,  "  it  will  spoil  the  meeting.  The  labourers  will  turn 
sulky.  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  they  did  or  said  something  unpleas- 
ant. As  it  is,  you  had  much  better  not  come,  mamma.  They  are 
sure  to  attack  the  cottages  —  and  other  things." 

Mrs.  Boyce  took  no  notice  as  far  as  she  herself  was  concerned,^ 
but  her  quiet  decision  at  last  succeeded  in  leaving  Mr.  Boyce 
safely  settled  by  the  fire,  provided  as  usual  with  a  cigarette  and  a 
French  novel. 

The  meeting  was  held  in  a  little  iron  Baptist  chapel,  erected 
some  few  years  before  on  the  outskirts  of  the  village,  to  the  grief 
and  scandal  of  Mr.  Harden.  There  were  about  a  hundred  and 
twenty  labourers  present,  and  at  the  back  some  boys  and  girls, 
come  to  giggle  and  make  a  noise  —  nobody  else.  The  Baptist  min- 
ister, a  smooth-faced  young  man,  possessed,  as  it  turned  out,  of 
opinions  little  short  of  Wharton's  own  in  point  of  vigour  and 
rigour,  was  already  in  command.  A  few  late  comers,  as  they 
slouched  in,  stole  side  looks  at  Marcella  and  the  veiled  lady  in 
black  beside  her,  sitting  in  the  corner  of  the  last  bench;  and 
Marcella  nodded  to  one  or  two  of  the  audience,  Jim  Hurd  amongst 
them.  Otherwise  no  one  took  any  notice  of  them.  It  was  the 
first  time  that  Mrs.  Boyce  had  been  inside  any  building  belonging 
to  the  village. 

Wharton  arrived  late.  He  had  been  canvassing  at  a  distance, 
and  neither  of  the  Mellor  ladies  had  seen  him  all  day.  He  slipped 
up  the  bench  with  a  bow  and  a  smile  to  greet  them.  "  I  am 
done  !  "  he  said  to  Marcella,  as  he  took  off  his  hat.  "  My  voice  is 
gone,  my  mind  ditto.  I  shall  drivel  for  half  an  hour  and  let  them 
go.     Did  you  ever  see  such  a  stolid  set  ?  " 

"  You  will  rouse  them,"  said  Marcella. 

Her  eyes  were  animated,  her  colour  high,  and  she  took  no 
account  at  all  of  his  plea  of  weariness. 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  191 

"  You  challenge  me  ?  I  must  rouse  them — that  was  what  you 
came  to  see  ?    Is  that  it  ?  " 

She  laughed  and  made  no  answer.  He  left  her  and  went  up  to 
the  minister's  desk,  the  men  shuffling  their  feet  a  little,  and 
rattling  a  stick  here  and  there  as  he  did  so. 

The  young  minister  took  the  chair  and  introduced  the  speaker. 
He  had  a  strong  Yorkshire  accent,  and  his  speech  was  divided 
between  the  most  vehement  attacks,  couched  in  the  most  Script- 
ural language,  upon  capital  and  privilege  —  that  is  to  say,  on  land- 
lords and  tlie  land  system,  on  State  churches  and  the  "  idle  rich," 
interspersed  with  quavering  returns  upon  himself,  as  though  he 
were  scared  by  his  own  invective.  "  My  brothers,  let  us  be  calm ! " 
he  would  say  after  every  burst  of  passion,  with  a  long  deep-voiced 
emphasis  on  the  last  word ;  "  let  us,  above  all  things,  be  cahn  ! "  — 
and  then  bit  by  bit  voice  and  denunciation  would  begin  to  mount 
again  towards  a  fresh  climax  of  loud-voiced  attack,  only  to  sink 
again  to  the  same  lamb-like  refrain.  Mrs.  Boyce's  thin  lip 
twitched,  and  Marcella  bore  the  good  gentleman  a  grudge  for 
providing  her  mother  with  so  much  unnecessary  amusement. 

As  for  Wharton,  at  the  opening  of  his  speech  he  spoke  both 
awkwardly  and  flatly ;  and  Marcella  had  a  momentary  shock.  He 
was,  as  he  said,  tired,  and  his  wits  were  not  at  command.  He 
began  with  the  general  political  programme  of  the  party  to  which 
—  on  its  extreme  left  wing  —  he  proclaimed  himself  to  belong. 
This  programnae  was,  of  course,  by  now  a  newspaper  commonplace 
of  the  stalest  sort.  He  himself  recited  it  without  enthusiasm,  and 
it  was  received  without  a  spark,  so  far  as  appeared,  of  interest  or 
agreement.  The  minister  gave  an  "  hear,  hear,"  of  a  loud  official 
sort;  the  men  made  no  sign. 

"  They  might  be  a  set  of  Dutch  cheeses ! "  thought  Marcella, 
indignantly,  after  a  while.  "  But,  after  all,  why  should  they  care 
for  all  this  ?  I  shall  have  to  get  up  in  a  minute  and  stop  those 
children  romping." 

But  through  all  this,  as  it  were,  Wharton  was  only  waiting  for 
his  second  wind.  There  came  a  moment  when,  droj^ping  his  quasi- 
official  and  high  political  tone,  he  said  suddenly  with  another  voice 
and  empliasis : 

"  Well  now,  my  men,  I'll  be  bound  you're  thinking,  '  That's  all 
pretty  enough  !  —  we  haven't  got  anything  against  it  —  we  dare 
say  it's  all  right ;  but  we  don't  care  a  brass  ha'porth  about  any  of 
it !  If  that's  all  you've  got  to  say  to  us,  you  might  have  let  us 
bide  at  home.  We  don't  have  none  too  much  time  to  rest  our 
bones  a  bit  by  the  fire,  and  talk  to  the  missus  and  the  kids.  Why 
didn't  you  let  us  alone,  instead  of  bringing  us  out  in  the  cold?' 

"Well,  but  it   isn't  all  I've  got  to  say  —  and  you  know  it  — 


0^ 
192  MARCELLA  book  ii 

because  I've  spoken  to  you  before.  What  I've  been  talking  about 
is  all  true,  and  all  important,  and  you'll  see  it  some  day  when 
you're  fit.  But  what  can  men  in  your  position  know  about  it,  or 
care  about  it  ?     What  do  any  of  you  want,  but  hread  —  " 

—  He  thundered  on  the  desk  — 

"  —  a  bit  of  decent  comfort  —  a  bit  of  freedom  —  freedom  from 
tyrants  who  call  themselves  your  betters !  —  a  bit  of  rest  in  your 
old  age,  a  home  that's  something  better  than  a  dog-hole,  a  wage 
that's  something  better  than  starvation,  an  honest  share  in  the 
wealth  j'ou  are  making  every  day  and  every  hour  for  other  people 
to  gorge  and  plunder !  " 

He  stopped  a  moment  to  see  how  that  took.  A  knot  of  young 
men  in  a  corner  rattled  their  sticks  vigorously.  The  older  men 
had  begun  at  any  rate  to  look  at  the  speaker.  The  boys  on  the 
back  benches  instinctively  stopped  scuffling. 

Then  he  threw  himself  into  a  sort  of  rapid  question-and-answer. 
What  were  their  wages? — eleven  shillings  a  week? 

"  Not  they !  "  cried  a  man  from  the  middle  of  the  chapel. 
"  Yer  mus'  reckon  it  wet  an'  dry.  I  wor  turned  back  two  days 
las'  week,  an'  two  days  this,  fower  shillin'  lost  each  week — that's 
what  I  call  skinnin'  ov  yer." 

Wharton  nodded  at  him  approvingly.  By  now  he  knew  the 
majority  of  the  men  in  each  village  by  name,  and  never  forgot  a 
face  or  a  biography.  "You're  right  there,  Watkins.  Eleven  shil- 
lings, then,  when  it  isn't  less,  never  more,  and  precious  often  less ; 
and  harvest  money — the  people  that  are  kind  enough  to  come 
round  and  ask  you  to  vote  Tory  for  them  make  a  deal  of  that, 
don't  they?  —  and  a  few  odds  and  ends  here  and  there  —  precious 
few  of  them!  There!  that's  about  it  for  wages,  isn't  it?  Thirty 
pounds  a  year,  somewhere  about,  to  keep  a  wife  and  children  on  — 
and  for  ten  hours  a  day  work,  not  counting  meal  times  —  that's  it, 
I  think.     Oh,  you  a/-e  well  off !  —  aren't  you?" 

He  dropped  his  arms,  folded,  on  the  desk  in  front  of  him,^  and 
paused  to  look  at  them,  his  bright  kindling  eye  running  over  rank 
after  rank.  "A  chuckle  of  rough  laughter,  bitter  and  jeering,  ran 
through  the  benches.     Then  they  broke  out  and  applauded  him. 

Well,  and  about  their  cottages  ? 

His  glance  caught  Marcella,  passed  to  her  mother  sitting  stiffly 
motionless  under  her  veil.  He  drew  himself  up,  thought  a  mo- 
ment, then  threw  himself  far  forward  again  over  the  desk  as 
though  the  better  to  launch  what  he  had  to  say,  his  voice  taking 
a  grinding  determined  note. 

He  had  been  in  all  parts  of  the  division,  he  said ;  seen  every- 
thing, enquired  into  everything.  No  doubt,  on  the  great  prop- 
erties  there    had   been  a  good  deal  done  of   late   years — public 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  193 

opinion  had  effected  something,  the  landlords  had  been  forced  to 
disgoi'ge  some  of  the  gains  wrested  from  labour,  to  pay  for  the 
decent  housing  of  the  labourer.  But  did  anybody  suppose  that 
enough  had  been  done?  Why,  he  had  seen  dens  —  aye,  on  the  best 
properties  —  not  fit  for  the  pigs  that  the  farmers  wouldn't  let  the 
labourers  keep,  lest  they  should  steal  their  straw  for  the  littering 
of  them!  —  where  a  man  was  bound  to  live  the  life  of  a  beast,  and 
his  children  after  him  — 

A  tall  thin  man  of  about  sixty  rose  in  his  place,  and  pointed  a 
long  quavering  finger  at  the  speaker. 

"What  is  it,  Darwin?  speak  up!"  said  Wharton,  dropping  at 
once  into  the  colloquial  tone,  and  stooping  forward  to  listen. 

"  My  sleepin'  room's  six  foot  nine  by  seven  foot  six.  We  have 
to  shift  our  bed  for  the  rain's  comin'  in,  an'  yer  may  see  for  your- 
sels  ther  ain't  much  room  to  shift  it  in.  An'  beyont  us  ther's  a 
room  for  the  chillen,  same  size  as  ourn,  an'  no  window,  nothin'  but 
the  door  into  us.  Ov  a  summer  night  the  chillen,  three  on  'em,  is 
all  of  a  sweat  afoi-e  they're  asleep.  An'  no  garden,  an'  no  chance 
o'  decent  ways  nohow.  An'  if  yer  ask  for  a  bit  o'  repairs  yer  get 
sworn  at.  An'  that's  all  that  most  on  us  can  get  out  of  Squire 
Boyce !  " 

There  was  a  hasty  whisper  among  some  of  the  men  round  him, 
as  they  glanced  over  their  shoulders  at  the  two  ladies  on  the  back 
bench.  One  or  two  of  them  half  rose,  and  tried  to  pull  him  down. 
Wharton  looked  at  Marcella ;  it  seemed  to  him  he  saw  a  sort  of 
passionate  satisfaction  on  her  pale  face,  and  in  the  erect  carriage 
of  her  head.  Then  she  stooped  to  the  side  and  whispered  to  her 
mother.  Mrs.  Boyce  shook  her  head  and  sat  on,  immovable.  All 
this  took  but  a  second  or  two. 

"Ah,  well,"  said  Wharton,  "we  won't  have  names;  that'll  do  us 
no  good.  It's  not  the  men  you've  got  to  go  for  so  much  —  though 
we  shall  go  for  them  too  before  long  when  we've  got  the  law  more 
on  our  side.  It's  the  system.  It's  the  whole  way  of  dividing  the 
wealth  that  you  made,  you  and  your  children  — by  your  work,  your 
hard,  slavish,  incessant  work  —  between  you  and  those  who  don't 
work,  who  live  on  your  labour  and  gi'ow  fat  on  your  poverty ! 
What  we  want  is  a  fair  division.  There  ought  to  be  wealth  enougla 
—  there  is  wealth  enough  for  all  in  this  blessed  country.  The 
earth  gives  it ;  the  sun  gives  it :  labour  extracts  and  piles  it  up. 
Why  should  one  class  take  three-fourths  of  it  and  leave  you  and 
your  fellow-workers  in  the  cities  the  miserable  pittance  which  is  all 
you  have  to  starve  and  breed  on?  Why  ?  —  why  ?  I  say.  Why !  — 
because  you  are  a  set  of  dull,  jealoixs,  poor-spirited  coivards,  unable 
to  pidl  together,  to  trust  each  other,  to  give  up  so  much  as  a  pot 
of  beer  a  week  for  the  sake  of  your  children  and  your  liberties 
o 


194  MARCELLA  book  ii 

and  your  class  —  there,  that's  why  it  is,  and  I  tell  it  you  straight 
out ! " 

He  drew  himself  up,  folded  his  arms  across  his  chest,  and  looked 
at  them  —  scorn  and  denunciation  in  every  line  of  his  young  frame, 
and  the  blaze  of  his  blue  eye.  A  murmur  ran  through  the  room. 
Some  of  the  men  laughed  excitedly.     Darwin  sprang  up  again. 

"  You  keep  the  perlice  off  us,  an'  gie  us  the  cuttin'  up  o'  their 
bloomin'  parks  an'  we'll  do  it  fast  enough,"  he  cried. 

"  Much  good  that'll  do  you,  just  at  present,"  said  Wharton,  con- 
temptuously.    "  Now,  you  just  listen  to  me." 

And,  leaning  forward  over  the  desk  again,  his  finger  pointed  at 
the  room,  he  went  through  the  regular  Socialist  programme  as  it 
affects  the  country  districts  —  the  transference  of  authority  within 
the  villages  from  the  few  to  the  many,  the  landlords  taxed  more 
and  more  heavily  during  the  transition  time  for  the  provision  of 
house  room,  water,  light,  education  and  amusement  for  the  labourer ; 
and  ultimately  land  and  capital  at  the  free  disposal  of  the  State,  to 
be  supplied  to  the  worker  on  demand  at  the  most  moderate  terms, 
while  the  annexed  rent  and  interest  of  the  capitalist  class  relieves 
him  of  taxes,  and  the  disappearance  of  squire.  State  parson,  and 
plutocrat  leaves  him  master  in  his  own  house,  the  slave  of  no  man, 
the  equal  of  all.  And,  as  a  first  step  to  this  new  Jerusalem  — 
organisation  !  —  self-sacrifice  enough  to  form  and  maintain  a  union, 
to  vote  for  Radical  and  Socialist  candidates  in  the  teeth  of  the 
people  who  have  coals  and  blankets  to  give  away. 

"  Then  I  suppose  you  think  you'd  be  turned  out  of  your  cottages, 
dismissed  your  work,  made  to  smart  for  it  somehow.  Just  you 
try  I  There  are  peoj)le  all  over  the  country  ready  to  back  you,  if 
you'd  only  back  yourselves.  But  you  ivon't.  You  won't  fight  — 
that's  the  worst  of  you ;  that's  what  makes  all  of  lis  sick  when  we 
come  down  to  talk  to  you.  You  won't  spare  twopence  halfpenny 
a  week  from  boozing  —  not  you! — to  subscribe  to  a  union,  and 
takeiihe  first  little  step  towards  filling  your  stomachs  and  holding 
your  heads  up  as  free  men.  What's  the  good  of  your  grumbling? 
I  suppose  you'll  go  on  like  that  —  grumbling  and  starving  and 
cringing  —  and  talking  big  of  the  things  you  could  do  if  you 
would :  —  and  all  the  time  not  one  honest  eif ort  —  not  one  !  —  to 
better  yourselves,  to  pull  the  yoke  off  your  necks !  By  the  Lord ! 
I  tell  you  it's  a  damned  s,ovtoi  business  talking  to  fellows  like  you !  " 

Marcella  started  as  he  flung  the  words  out  with  a  bitter,  nay,  a 
brutal  emphasis.  The  smooth-faced  minister  coughed  loudly  with 
a  sudden  movement,  half  got  up  to  remonstrate,  and  then  thought 
better  of  it.  Mrs.  Boyce  for  the  first  time  showed  some  anima- 
tion under  her  veil.  Her  eyes  followed  the  speaker  with  a  quick 
attention. 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  195 

As  for  the  men,  as  they  turned  chimsily  to  stare  at,  to  laugh,  or 
talk  to  each  other,  Marcella  could  hardly  make  out  whether  they 
were  angered  or  faschiated.  AVhichever  it  was,  Wliarton  cared 
for  none  of  them.  His  blood  was  up ;  his  fatigue  thrown  off. 
Standing  there  in  front  of  them,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  pale 
with  the  excitement  of  speaking,  his  curly  head  thrown  out  against 
the  whitened  wall  of  the  chapel,  he  lashed  into  the  men  before 
him,  talking  their  language,  their  dialect  even ;  laying  bare  their 
weaknesses,  sensualities,  indecisions ;  painting  in  the  sombi-est 
colours  the  grim  truths  of  their  inelanclioly  lives. 

Marcella  could  liardly  breathe.  It  seemed  to  her  that,  among 
these  cottagers,  she  had  never  lived  till  now  —  under  the  blaze  of 
these  eyes  —  within  the  vibration  of  this  voice.  Never  had  she  so 
realised  the  power  of  this  singular  being.  He  was  scourging,  dis- 
secting, the  weather-beaten  men  before  him,  as,  with  a  difference, 
he  had  scourged,  dissected  her.  She  found  herself  exulting  in  his 
powers  of  tyranny,  in  the  naked  thrust  of  his  words,  so  nervous, 
so  pitiless.  And  then  by  a  sudden  flash  she  thought  of  him  by 
Mrs.  Hurd's  fire,  the  dying  child  on  his  knee,  against  his  breast. 
"  Here,"  she  thought,  while  her  pulses  leapt,  "  is  the  leader  for  me 
—  for  these.     Let  him  call,  I  will  follow." 

It  was  as  though  he  followed  the  ranging  of  her  thought,  for 
suddenly,  when  she  and  his  hearers  least  expected  it,  his  tone 
changed,  his  storm  of  speech  sank.  He  fell  into  a  strain  of  quiet 
sympathy,  encouragement,  hope ;  dwelt  with  a  good  deal  of  homely 
iteration  on  the  immediate  practical  steps  which  each  man  before 
him  could,  if  he  would,  take  towards  the  common  end ;  spoke  of 
the  help  and  support  lying  ready  for  the  country  labourers  through- 
out democratic  England  if  they  would  but  put  forward  their  own 
energies  and  quit  themselves  like  men ;  pointed  forward  to  a  time 
of  plenty,  education,  social  peace  ;  and  so  —  with  some  good-tem- 
pered banter  of  his  opponent,  old  Dodgson,  and  some  precise  in- 
structions as  to  how  and  where  they  were  to  record  their  votes  on 
the  day  of  election —  came  to  an  end.  Two  or  three  other  speeches 
followed,  and  among  them  a  few  stumbling  words  from  Hurd. 
Marcella  approved  herself  and  applauded  him,  as  she  recognised  a 
sentence  or  two  taken  bodily  from  the  Labour  Clarion  of  the  pre- 
ceding week.  Then  a  resolution  pledging  the  meeting  to  support 
the  Liberal  candidate  was  passed  unanimously  amid  evident  excite- 
ment. It  was  the  first  time  that  such  a  thing  had  ever  happened 
in  Mellor. 

Mrs.  Boyce  treated  her  visitor  on  their  way  home  with  a  new 
respect,  mixed,  however,  as  usual,  with  her  prevailing  irony.  For 
one  who  knew  her,  her  manner  implied,  not  that  she  liked  him 


196  MAECELLA    ■  book  ii 

any  more,  but  that  a  man  so  well  trained  to  his  own  profession 
must  always  hold  his  own. 

As  for  Marcella,  she  said  little  or  nothing.  But  Wharton,  in 
the  dark  of  the  carriage,  had  a  strange  sense  that  her  eye  was 
often  on  him,  that  her  mood  marched  with  his,  and  that  if  he  could 
have  spoken  her  response  would  have  been  electric. 

When  he  had  helped  her  out  of  the  carriage,  and  they  stood  in 
the  vestibule — Mrs.  Boyce  having  walked  on  into  the  hall  —  he 
said  to  her,  his  voice  hoarse  with  fatigue : 

"  Did  I  do  your  bidding,  did  I  rouse  them?  " 

Marcella  was  seized  with  sudden  shyness. 

"  You  rated  them  enough." 

"  Well,  did  you  disapprove  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no  !  it  seems  to  be  your  way." 

"My  proof  of  friendship?  Well,  can  there  be  a  greater?  Will 
you  show  me  some  to-morrow  ?  " 

"  How  can  I  ?  " 

"  Will  you  criticise?  —  tell  me  where  you  thought  I  was  a  fool 
to-night,  or  a  hypocrite  ?     Your  mother  would." 

"  I  dare  say !  "  said  Marcella,  her  breath  quickening ;  "  but  don't 
expect  it  from  me." 

"  Why  ?  " 

"  Because  —  because  I  don't  pretend.  I  don't  know  whether  you 
roused  them,  but  you  roused  me." 

She  swept  on  before  him  into  the  dark  hall,  without  giving  him 
a  moment  for  reply,  took  her  candle,  and  disappeared. 

Wharton  found  his  own  staircase,  and  went  up  to  bed.  The 
light  he  carried  showed  his  smiling  eyes  bent  on  the  ground, 
his  mouth  still  moving  as  though  with  some  pleasant  desire  of 
speech. 

CHAPTER  Vn 

Wharton  was  sitting  alone  in  the  big  Mellor  drawing-room, 
after  dinner.  He  had  drawn  one  of  the  few  easy  chairs  the  room 
possessed  to  the  fire,  and  with  his  feet  on  the  fender,  and  one 
of  Mr.  Boyce's  Fi'ench  novels  on  his  knee,  he  was  intensely  enjoy- 
ing a  moment  of  physical  ease.  The  work  of  these  weeks  of  can- 
vassing and  speaking  had  been  arduous,  and  he  was  naturally 
indolent.  Now,  beside  this  fire  and  at  a  distance,  it  amazed  him 
that  any  motive  whatever,  public  or  private,  should  ever  have 
been  strong  enough  to  take  him  out  through  the  mire  on  these 
winter  nights  to  spout  himself  hoarse  to  a  parcel  of  rustics. 
"  What  did  I  do  it  for  ?  "  he  asked  himself  ;  "  what  am  I  going  to 
do  it  for  again  to-morrow  ?  " 


CHAP.  VII  MARCELLA  197 

Ten  o'clock.  Mi*.  Boyce  was  gone  to  bed.  No  moi'e  entertaining 
of  him  to  be  done ;  one  might  be  thankful  for  that  mercy.  Miss 
Boyce  and  her  mother  would,  he  supposed,  be  down  dh-ectly. 
They  had  gone  up  to  dress  at  nine.  It  was  the  night  of  the 
Maxwell  Court  Ball,  and  the  carriage  had  been  ordered  for  half- 
past  ten.  In  a  few  minutes  he  would  see  Miss  Boyce  in  her  new 
dress,  wearing  Raeburn's  pearls.  He  was  extraordinarily  obser- 
vant, and  a  number  of  little  incidents  and  domestic  arrangements 
bearing  on  the  feminine  side  of  Marcella's  life  had  been  apparent 
to  him  from  the  beginning.  He  knew,  for  instance,  that  the 
trousseau  was  being  made  at  home,  and  that  during  the  last  few 
weeks  the  iady  for  whom  it  was  destined  had  shown  an  indifference 
to  the  progress  of  it  which  seemed  to  excite  a  dumb  annoyance  in 
her  mother.     Curious  woman,  Mrs.  Boyce  ! 

He  found  himself  listening  to  every  opening  door,  and  already, 
as  it  were,  gazing  at  IMarcella  in  her  white  array.  He  was  not 
asked  to  this  ball.  As  he  had  early  explained  to  IMiss  Boyce,  he 
and  Miss  Raeburn  had  been  "  cuts  "  for  years,  for  what  reason  he 
had  of  course  left  Marcella  to  guess.  As  if  Marcella  found  any 
difficulty  in  guessing  —  as  if  the  j)reposterous  bigotries  and  intoler- 
ances of  the  Ladies'  League  were  not  enough  to  account  for  any 
similar  behaviour  on  the  part  of  any  similar  high-bred  spinster ! 
As  for  this  occasion,  she  was  far  too  proud  both  on  her  own  behalf 
and  AVharton's  to  say  anything  either  to  Lord  Maxwell  or  his  sister 
on  the  subject  of  an  invitation  for  her  father's  guest. 

It  so  happened,  however,  that  Wharton  was  aware  of  certain 
other  reasons  for  his  social  exclusion  from  INIaxwell  Court.  There 
was  no  necessity,  of  course,  for  enlightening  Miss  Boyce  on  the 
point.  But  as  he  sat  waiting  for  her,  Wharton's  mind  went  back 
to  the  pjist  connected  with  those  reasons.  In  that  past  Raeburn 
had  had  the  whip-hand  of  him ;  Raeburn  had  been  the  moral 
superior  dictating  indignant  terms  to  a  young  fellow  detected  in 
flagrant  luisconduct.  Wharton  did  not  know  that  he  bore  him 
any  particular  grudge.  But  he  had  never  liked  Aldous,  as  a  boy, 
that  he  could  remember;  naturally  he  had  liked  him  less  since 
that  old  affair.  The  remembrance  of  it  had  made  his  position  at 
Mellor  particularly  sweet  to  him  from  the  beginning ;  he  was  not 
sure  that  it  had  not  determined  his  original  acceptance  of  the 
offer  made  to  him  by  the  Liberal  Committee  to  contest  old  Dodg- 
son's  seat.  And  during  the  past  few  weeks  the  exhilaration  and 
interest  of  the  general  position  —  considering  all  things — had 
been  very  great.  Not  only  was  he  on  the  point  of  ousting  the 
Maxwell  candidate  from  a  seat  which  he  had  held  securely  for 
yeai's  —  Wharton  was  perfectly  well  awai'e  by  now  that  he  was 
trespassing    on   Aldous   Raeburn's    preserves   in   ways   far   more 


198  MARCELLA.  book  ii 

important,  and  infinitely  more  irritating !  He  and  Raeburn  had 
not  met  often  at  Mellor  during  these  weeks  of  fight.  Each  had 
been  too  busy.  But  whenever  they  had  come  across  each  other 
Wharton  had  clearly  perceived  that  his  presence  in  the  house, 
his  growing  intimacy  with  Marcella  Boyce,  the  free-masonry  of 
opinion  between  them,  the  interest  she  took  in  his  contest,  the 
village  friendships  they  had  in  common,  were  aU  intensely  galling 
to  Aldous  Raeburn. 

The  course  of  events,  indeed,  had  lately  produced  in  Wharton  a 
certain  excitement  —  recklessness  even.  He  had  come  down  into 
these  parts  to  court  "the  joy  of  eventful  living"  —  politically  and 
personally.  But  the  situation  had  proved  to  be  actually  far  more 
poignant  and  personal  than  he  had  expected.  This  proud,  crude, 
handsome  girl  —  to  her  certainly  it  was  largely  due  that  the  days 
had  flown  as  they  had.  He  was  perfectly,  one  might  almost  say  glee- 
fully, aware  that  at  the  present  moment  it  was  he  and  not  Aldous 
Raeburn  who  was  intellectually  her  master.  His  mind  flew  back  at 
first  with  amusement,  then  with  a  thrill  of  something  else,  over 
their  talks  and  quarrels.  He  smiled  gaily  as  he  recalled  her  fits 
of  anger  with  him,  her  remonstrances,  appeals  —  and  then  her 
awkward  inevitable  submissions  when  he  had  crushed  her  with 
sarcasm  or  with  facts.  Ah!  she  would  go  to  this  ball  to-night; 
Aldous  Raeburn  would  parade  her  as  his  possession ;  but  she 
would  go  with  thoughts,  ambitions,  ideals,  which,  as  they  de- 
veloped, would  make  her  more  and  more  difficult  for  a  Raeburn 
to  deal  with.  And  in  those  thoughts  and  ambitions  the  man  who 
had  been  her  tormentor,  teacher,  and  companion  during  six  rush- 
ing weeks  knew  well  that  he  already  counted  for  much.  He  had 
cherished  in  her  all  those  "  divine  discontents  "  which  were  already 
there  when  he  first  knew  her ;  taught  her  to  formulate  them,  given 
her  better  reasons  for  them ;  so  that  by  now  she  was  a  person  with 
a  far  more  defined  and  stormy  will  than  she  had  been  to  begin 
with.  Wharton  did  not  particularly  know  why  he  should  exult ; 
but  he  did  exult.  At  any  rate,  he  was  prodigiously  tickled  —  en- 
tertained—  by  the  whole  position. 

A  step,  a  rustle  outside  —  he  hastily  shut  his  book  and  listened. 

The  door  opened,  and  Marcella  came  in  — a  white  vision  against 
the  heavy  blue  of  the  walls.  With  her  came,  too,  a  sudden  strong 
scent  of  flowers,  for  she  carried  a  marvellous  bunch  of  hot-house 
roses,  Aldous's  gift,  which  had  just  arrived  by  special  messenger. 

Wharton  sprang  up  and  placed  a  chair  for  her. 

"  I  had  begun  to  believe  the  ball  only  existed  in  my  own  imagina- 
tion !  "  he  said  gaily.     "  Surely  you  are  very  late." 

Then  he  saw  that  she  looked  disturbed. 

"  It  was  papa,"  she  said,  coming  to  the  fire,  and  looking  down 


CHAP.  VII  MARCELLA  199 

into  it.  "It  has  been  another  attack  of  pain  —  not  serious, 
mamma  says ;  she  is  coming  down  directly.  But  I  wonder  why 
they  come,  and  why  he  thinks  himself  so  ill  —  do  you  know?" 
she  added  abruptly,  turning  to  her  companion. 

Wharton  hesitated,  taken  by  surprise.  During  the  past  weeks, 
what  with  Mr.  Boyce's  confidence  and  his  own  acuteness,  he  had 
arrived  at  a  very  shrewd  notion  of  what  was  wrong  with  his  host. 
But  he  was  not  going  to  enlighten  the  daughter. 

"I  should' say  your  father  wants  a  great  deal  of  care  —  and  is 
nervous  about  himself,"  he  said  quietly.  "  But  he  will  get  the 
care  —  and  your  mother  knows  the  whole  state  of  the  case." 

"  Yes,  she  knows,"  said  Marcella.     "  I  wish  I  did." 

And  a  sudden  painful  expression  —  of  moral  worry,  remorse  — 
passed  across  the  girl's  face.  Wharton  knew  that  she  had  often 
been  impatient  of  late  with  her  father,  and  incredulous  of  his  com- 
plaints.    He  thought  he  understood. 

"  One  can  often  be  of  more  use  to  a  sick  person  if  one  is  not  too 
well  acquainted  with  what  ails  them,"  he  said.  "  Hope  and  cheer- 
fulness are  everything  in  a  case  like  your  father's.  He  will  do 
well." 

"  If  he  does  he  won't  owe  any  of  it  —  " 

She  stopped  as  impulsively  as  she  had  begun.  "  To  me,"  she 
meant  to  have  said ;  then  had  retreated  hastily,  before  her  own 
sense  of  something  unduly  intimate  and  personal.  Wharton 
stood  quietly  beside  her,  saying  nothing,  but  receiving  and  sooth- 
ing her  self-reproach  just  as  surely  as  though  she  had  put  it  into 
words. 

"  You  are  crushing  your  flowers,  I  think,"  he  said  suddenly. 

And  indeed  her  roses  were  dangling  against  her  dress,  as  if  she 
had  forgotten  all  about  them. 

She  raised  them  carelessly,  but  he  bent  to  smell  them,  and  she 
held  them  out. 

"  Summer ! "  he  said,  plunging  his  face  into  them  with  a  long 
breath  of  sensuous  enjoyment.  "  How  the  year  sweeps  round  in 
an  instant !  And  all  the  effect  of  a  little  heat  and  a  little  money. 
Will  you  allow  me  a  philosopher's  remark  ?  " 

He  drew  back  from  her.  His  quick  inquisitive  but  still  respect- 
ful eye  took  in  every  delightful  detail. 

"  If  I  don't  give  you  leave,  my  expei'ience  is  that  you  will  take 
it!  "  she  said,  half  laughing,  half  resentful,  as  though  she  had  old 
aggressions  in  mind. 

"You  admit  the  strength  of  the  temptation?  It  is  very  simple, 
no  one  could  help  making  it.  To  be  spectator  of  the  height  of  any- 
thing—  the  best,  the  climax  —  makes  any  mortal's  pulses  run. 
Beauty,  success,  happiness,  for  instance?" 


200  MARCELLA  book  n 

He  paused  smiling.  She  leant  a  thin  hand  on  the  mantelpiece 
and  looked  away ;  Aldous's  pearls  slipped  backwards  along  her 
white  arm. 

"  Do  you  suj^pose  to-night  will  be  the  height  of  happiness?  "  she 
said  at  last  with  a  little  scorn.  "  These  functions  don't  present 
themselves  to  me  in  such  a  light." 

Wharton  could  have  laughed  out  —  her  pedantry  was  so  young 
and  unconscious.     But  he  restrained  himself. 

"I  shall  be  with  the  majority  to-night,"  he  said  demurely.  "I 
may  as  well  warn  you." 

Her  colour  rose.  No  other  man  had  ever  dared  to  speak  to  her 
with  this  assurance,  this  cool  scrutinising  air.  She  told  herself 
to  be  indignant ;  the  next  moment  she  loas  indignant,  but  with 
herself  for  remembering  conventionalities. 

"Tell  me  one  thing,"  said  Wharton,  changing  his  tone  wholly. 
"  I  know  you  went  down  hurriedly  to  the  village  before  dinner. 
Was  anything  wrong?" 

"  Old  Patton  is  very  ill,"  she  said,  sighing.  "  I  went  to  ask  after 
him ;  he  may  die  any  moment.     And  the  Hurds'  boy  too." 

He  leant  against  the  mantelpiece,  talking  to  her  about  both 
cases  with  a  quick  incisive  common-sense  —  not  unkind,  but  with- 
out a  touch  of  unnecessary  sentiment,  still  less  of  the  superior 
person — which  represented  one  of  the  moods  she  liked  best  in 
him.  In  speaking  of  the  poor  he  always  took  the  tone  of  com- 
radesliip,  of  a  plain  equality,  and  the  tone  was,  in  fact,  genuine. 

"  Do  you  know,"  he  said  presently,  "  I  did  not  tell  you  before, 
but  I  am  certain  that  Kurd's  wife  is  afraid  of  you,  that  she  has  a 
secret  from  you?  " 

"  From  me !  how  could  she  ?  I  know  every  detail  of  their 
affairs." 

"  No  matter.  I  listened  to  what  she  said  that  day  in  the  cot- 
tage w^hen  I  had  the  boy  on  my  knee.  I  noticed  her  face,  and  I  am 
quite  certain.     She  has  a  secret,  and  above  all  a  secret  from  you." 

Marcella  looked  disturbed  for  a  moment,  then  she  laughed. 

"  Oh,  no !  "  she  said,  with  a  little  superior  air.  "  I  assure  you 
I  know  her  better  than  you." 

Wharton  said  no  more. 

"  Marcella !  "  called  a  distant  voice  from  the  hall. 

The  girl  gathered  up  her  white  skirts  and  her  flowers  in  haste. 

"  Good-night ! " 

"  Good-night !  I  shall  hear  you  come  home  and  wonder  how 
you  have  sped.  One  word,  if  I  may !  Take  your  role  and  play  it. 
There  is  nothing  subjects  dislike  so  much  as  to  see  royalty  decline 
its  part." 

She  laughed,  blushed,  a  little  proudly  and  uncertainly,  and  went 


CHAP,  VII  MARCELLA  201 

without  reply.  As  she  shut  the  door  behind  her,  a  sudden  flatness 
feh  upon  her.  She  walked  through  the  dark  Stone  Parlour  out- 
side, seeing  still  the  firmly-knit  lightly-made  figure  —  boyish, 
middle-sized,  yet  never  insignificant  —  the  tumbled  waves  of  fair 
hair,  the  eyes  so  keenly  blue,  the  face  with  its  sharp  mocking 
lines,  its  powers  of  siulden  charm.  Then  self-reproach  leapt,  and 
possessed  her.  She  quickened  her  pace,  hurrying  into  the  hall,  as 
though  from  something  she  was  ashamed  or  afraid  of. 

In  the  hall  a  new  sensation  awaited  her.  Her  mother,  fully 
dressed,  stood  waiting  by  the  old  billiard-table  for  her  maid,  who 
had  gone  to  fetch  her  a  cloak. 

Marcella  stopped  an  instant  in  surprise  and  delight,  then  ran  up 
to  her.  "  Maiuma,  how  locely  you  look !  I  haven't  seen  you  like 
that,  not  since  I  was  a  child.  I  remember  you  then  once,  in  a 
low  dress,  a.  white  dress,  with  flowers,  coming  into  the  nursery. 
But  that  black  becomes  you  so  well,  and  Deacon  has  done  your 
hair  beautifully ! " 

She  took  her  mother's  hand  and  kissed  her  cheek,  touched  by 
an  emotion  which  had  many  roots.  There  was  infinite  relief  in 
this  tender  natural  outlet ;  she  seemed  to  recover  possession  of 
herself. 

Mrs.  Boyce  bore  the  kiss  quietly.  Her  face  was  a  little  pinched 
and  white.  But  the  unusual  display  Deacon  had  been  allowed  to 
make  of  her  pale  golden  hair,  still  long  and  abundant ;  the  unveil- 
ing of  the  shapely  shoulders  and  neck,  little  less  beautiful  than 
her  daughter's ;  the  elegant  lines  of  the  velvet  dress,  all  these 
things  had  very  nobly  transformed  her.  Marcella  could  not 
restrain  her  admiration  and  delight.  Mrs.  Boyce  winced,  and, 
looking  upward  to  the  gallery,  which  ran  round  the  hall,  called 
Deacon  impatiently. 

"Only,  mamma,"  said  Marcella,  discontentedly,  "I  don't  like  that 
little  chain  round  your  neck.  It  is  not  equal  to  the  rest,  not 
worthy  of  it." 

"  I  have  nothing  else,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  drily.  "  Now, 
Deacon,  don't  be  all  night !  " 

Nothing  else  ?  Yet,  if  she  shut  her  eyes,  Marcella  could  perfectly 
recall  the  diamonds  on  the  neck  and  arms  of  that  white  figure  of 
her  childhood  —  could  see  herself  as  a  baby  playing  w'ith  the  treas- 
ures of  her  mother's  jewel-box. 

Nowadays,  Mrs.  Boyce  was  very  secretive  and  reserved  about 
her  personal  possessions.  Marcella  never  went  into  her  room 
unless  she  was  asked,  and  would  never  have  thought  of  treating 
it  or  its  contents  with  any  freedom. 

The  mean  chain  which  went  so  ill  with  the  costly  hoarded  dress 
—  it  recalled  to  Marcella  all  the  inexoi-able  Silent  miseries  of  her 


202  MARCELLA  book  n 

mother's  past  life,  and  all  the  sordid  disadvantages  and  troubles 
of  her  own  youth.  She  followed  Mrs.  Boyce  out  to  the  carriage 
in  silence  —  once  more  in  a  tumult  of  sore  pride  and  doubtful 
feeling. 

Four  weeks  to  her  wedding-day  I  The  words  dinned  in  her  ears 
as  they  drove  along.  Yet  they  sounded  strange  to  her,  incredible 
almost.  How  much  did  she  know  of  Aldous,  of  her  life  that  was 
to  be  —  above  all,  how  nmch  of  herself?  She  was  not  happy  — 
had  not  been  happy  or  at  ease  for  many  days.  Yet  in  her  restless- 
ness she  could  think  nothing  out.  Moreover,  the  chain  that  galled 
and  curbed  her  was  a  chain  of  character.  In  spite  of  her  modern- 
ness,  and  the  complexity  of  many  of  her  motives,  there  were  cer- 
tain inherited  simplicities  of  nature  at  the  bottom  of  her.  In  her 
wild  demonic  childhood  you  could  always  trust  Marcie  Boyce,  if 
she  had  given  you  her  word  —  her  schoolfellows  knew  that.  If 
her  passions  were  half-civilised  and  southern,  her  way  of  under- 
standing the  point  of  honour  was  curiously  English,  sober,  tena- 
cious. So  now.  Her  sense  of  bond  to  Aldous  had  never  been  in 
the  least  touched  by  any  of  her  dissatisfactions  and  revolts.  Yet  it 
rushed  upon  her  to-night  with  amazement,  and  that  in  four  weeks 
she  was  going  to  marry  him !  Why  ?  how  ?  —  what  would  it  really 
mean  for  him  and  for  her?  It  was  as  though  in  mid-stream  she 
were  trying  to  pit  herseK  for  an  instant  against  the  current  which 
had  so  far  carried  them  all  on,  to  see  what  it  might  be  like  to 
retrace  a  step,  and  could  only  realise  with  dismay  the  force  and 
rapidity  of  the  water. 

Yet  all  the  time  another  side  of  her  was  well  aware  that  she  was 
at  that  moment  the  envy  of  half  a  county,  that  in  another  ten  min- 
utes hundreds  of  eager  and  critical  eyes  would  be  upon  her ;  and 
her  pride  was  rising  to  her  part.  The  little  incident  of  the  chain 
had  somehow  for  the  moment  made  the  ball  and  her  place  in  it 
more  attractive  to  her. 

They  had  no  sooner  stepped  from  their  carriage  than  Aldous, 
who  was  waiting  in  the  outer  hall,  joyously  discovered  them.  Till 
then  he  had  been  walking  aimlessly  amid  the  crowd  of  his  own 
guests,  wondering  when  she  would  come,  how  she  would  like  it. 
This  splendid  function  had  been  his  grandfather's  idea ;  it  would 
never  have  entered  his  own  head  for  a  moment.  Yet  he  under- 
stood his  grandfather's  wish  to  present  his  heir's  promised  bride  in 
this  public  ceremonious  way  to  the  society  of  which  she  would  some 
day  be  the  natural  leader.  He  understood,  too,  that  there  was 
more  in  the  wish  than  met  the  ear ;  that  the  occasion  meant  to 
Lord  Maxwell,  whether  Dick  Boyce  were  there  or  no,  the  final 


CHAP.  VII  MAKCELLA  203 

coudoiiiug  of  things  past  and  done  with,  a  final  throwing  of  the 
Maxwell  shield  over  the  Boyce  weakness,  and  full  adoption  of  Mar- 
cella  into  her  new  family. 

All  this  he  understood  and  was  grateful  for.  But  how  would 
she  respond?  How  would  she  like  it  —  this  parade  that  was  to  be 
made  of  her  —  these  people  that  must  be  introduced  to  her?  He 
was  full  of  anxieties. 

Yet  in  many  ways  his  mind  had  been  easier  of  late.  During  the 
last  week  she  had  been  very  gentle  and  good  to  him  —  even  Miss 
Raebm-n  had  been  pleased  with  her.  There  had  been  no  quoting 
of  Wharton  when  they  met;  and  he  had  done  his  philosopher's 
best  to  forget  him.  He  trusted  her  proudly,  intensely ;  and  in  four 
weeks  she  would  be  his  wife. 

"  Can  you  bear  it?  "  he  said  to  her  in  a  laughing  wliisper  as  she 
and  her  mother  emerged  from  the  cloak-room. 

"  Tell  me  what  to  do,"  she  said,  iiushing.  "  I  will  do  my  best. 
What  a  crowd  !     Must  we  stay  very  long  ?  " 

"  Ah,  my  dear  Mrs.  Boyce,"  cried  Lord  IMaxwell,  meeting  them 
on  the  steps  of  the  inner  quadrangular  corridor — "  Welcome  in- 
deed! Let  me  take  you  in.  Marcella!  with  Aldous's  permission ! " 
he  stooped  his  white  head  gallantly  and  kissed  her  on  the  cheek  — 
"  Remember  I  am  an  old  man ;  if  I  choose  to  pay  you  compliments, 
you  will  have  to  put  up  with  them !  " 

Then  he  offered  Mrs.  Boyce  his  arm,  a  stately  figure  in  his  ribbon 
and  cross  of  the  Bath.  A  delicate  red  had  risen  to  that  lady's  thin 
cheek  in  spite  of  her  self-possession.  "  Poor  thing,"  said  Lord  Max- 
well to  himself  as  he  led  her  along  —  "  poor  thing !  —  how  distin- 
guished and  charming  still!  One  sees  to-night  what  she  was  like 
as  a  girl." 

Aldous  and  Marcella  followed.  They  had  to  pass  along  the 
great  corridor  which  ran  round  the  quadrangle  of  the  house.  The 
antique  marbles  which  lined  it  were  to-night  masked  in  flowers, 
and  seats  covered  in  red  had  been  fitted  in  wherever  it  was  possi- 
ble, and  were  now  crowded  with  dancers  "sitting  out."  From  the 
ball-room  ahead  came  waves  of  waltz-music;  the  ancient  house 
was  alive  with  colour  and  perfume,  with  the  sounds  of  laughter 
and  talk,  lightly  fretting,  and  breaking  the  swaying  rhythms  of 
the  band.  Beyond  the  windows  of  the  corridor,  which  had  been 
left  uncurtained  because  of  the  beauty  of  the  night,  the  stiff  Tudor 
garden  with  its  fountains,  which  filled  up  the  quadrangle,  was 
gaily  illuminated  under  a  bright  moon ;  and  amid  all  the  varied 
colour  of  lamps,  drapery,  dresses,  faces,  the  antique  heads  ranged 
along  the  walls  of  the  corridor  —  here  Marcus  Aurelius,  there  Tra- 
jan, there  Seneca  —  and  the  marble  sarcophagi  which  broke  the 
line  at  intervals,  stood  in  cold,  whitish  relief. 


204  ""  MARCELLA  book  ii 

Mavcella  passed  along  on  Aldous's  arm,  conscious  that  people 
were  streaming  into  the  corridor  from  all  the  rooms  opening  upon 
it,  and  that  every  eye  was  fixed  upon  her  and  her  mother.  '•  Look, 
there  she  is,"  she  heard  in  an  excited  girl's  voice  as  they  passed 
Lord  Maxwell's  library,  now  abandoned  to  the  crowd  like  all  the 
rest.     "  Come,  quick !     There  —  I  told  you  she  was  lovely !  " 

Every  now  and  then  some  old  friend,  man  or  woman,  rose 
smiling  from  the  seats  along  the  side,  and  Aldous  introduced  his 
bride . 

"  On  her  dignity  !  "  said  an  old  hunting  squire  to  his  daughter 
when  they  had  passed.  "Shy,  no  doubt — very  natural!  But 
nowadays  girls,  when  they're  shy,  don't  giggle  and  blush  as  they 
used  to  in  my  young  days ;  they  look  as  if  you  meant  to  insult 
them,  and  they  weren't  going  to  allow  it!  Oh,  very  handsome  — 
very  handsome  —  of  course.  But  you  can  see  she's  advanced  — 
peculiar — or  what  d'ye  call  it?  —  woman's  rights,  I  suppose,  and 
all  that  kind  of  thing  ?     Like  to  see  you  go  in  for  it,  Xettie,  eh!  " 

"  She's  awfully  handsome,!'  sighed  his  pink-cheeked,  insignificant 
little  daughter,  still  craning  her  neck  to  look— "very  simply 
dressed  too,  except  for  those  lovely  pearls.  She  does  her  hair  very 
oddly,  so  low  down  —  in  those  plaits.  Nobody  does  it  like  that 
nowadays." 

"  That's  because  nobody  lias  such  a  head,"  said  her  brother,  a 
young  Hussar  lieutenant,  beside  her,  in  the  tone  of  connoisseur- 
ship.  "  By  George,  she's  ripping  —  she's  tlie  best-looking  girl  I've 
seen  for  a  good  long  time.  But  she's  a  Tartar,  I'll  swear  —  looks 
it,  anyway." 

"  Every  one  says  she  has  the  most  extraordinary  oi)inions,"  said 
the  girl,  eagerly.  "  She'll  manage  him,  don't  you  think  ?  I'm 
sure  he's  very  meek  and  mild." 

"  Don't  know  that,"  said  the  young  man,  twisting  his  moustache 
with  the  air  of  exhaustive  information.  "  Raeburn's  a  very  good 
fellow  —  excellent  fellow  —  see  him  shooting,  you  know  —  that 
kind  of  thing.  I  expect  he's  got  a  will  when  he  wants  it.  The 
mother's  handsome,  too,  and  looks  a  lady.  The  father's  kept  out 
of  the  way,  I  see.  Rather  a  blessing  for  the  Raeburns.  Can't  be 
pleasant,  you  know,  to  get  a  man  like  that  in  the  family.  Look 
after  yovir  spoons  —  that  kind  of  thing." 

Meanwhile  Marcella  was  standing  beside  Miss  Raeburn,  at  the 
head  of  the  long  ball-room,  and  doing  her  best  to  behave  prettily. 
One  after  another  she  bowed  to,  or  shook  hands  with,  half  the 
magnates  of  the  county  —  the  men  in  jiink,  the  women  in  the 
new  London  dresses,  for  which  this  brilliant  and  long-expected 
ball  had  given  so  welcome  an  excuse.  They  knew  little  or  nothing 
of  her,  except  that  she  was  clearly  good-looking,  that  she  was  that 


CHAP.  VII  MAKCELLA  206 

fellow  Dick  Boyce's  daiightev,  and  was  reported  to  be  "  odd." 
Some,  mostly  men,  wlio  said  their  conventional  few  words  to  her, 
felt  an  amused  admiration  for  the  skill  and  rapidity  with  which 
she  had  captured  the  parti  of  the  county ;  some,  mostly  women, 
were  already  jealous  of  her.  A  few  of  the  older  people  here  and 
there,  both  men  and  women  —  but  after  all  they  shook  liands 
like  the  rest!  —  knew  perfectly  well  that  the  girl  must  be  going 
through  an  ordeal,  were  touched  by  the  signs  of  thought  and 
storm  in  the  face,  and  looked  back  at  her  with  kind  eyes. 

But  of  these  last  Marcella  realised  nothing.  What  she  was  say- 
ing to  herself  was  that,  if  they  knew  little  of  her,  she  knew  a  great 
deal  of  many  of  them.  In  their  talks  over  the  Stone  Parlour  fire 
she  and  Wharton  had  gone  through  most  of  the  properties, 
large  and  small,  of  his  division,  and  indeed  of  the  divisions 
round,  by  the  help  of  the  knowledge  he  had  gained  in  his  canvass, 
together  with  a  blue-book  —  one  of  the  numberless  !  —  recently 
issued,  on  the  state  of  the  midland  labouren-.  He  had  abounded 
in  anecdote,  sarcasm,  reflection,  based  partly  on  his  OAvn  experi- 
ences, partly  on  his  endless  talks  with  the  working-folk,  now  in 
the  public-house,  now  at  their  own  chimney-corner.  Marcella, 
indeed,  had  a  large  iinsuspected  acquaintance  with  the  county 
before  she  met  it  in  the  flesh.  She  knew  that  a  great  many  of 
these  men  who  came  and  spoke  to  her  were  doing  their  best  ac- 
cording to  their  lights,  that  improvements  were  going  on,  that 
times  were  mending.  But  there  were  abuses  enough  still,  and  the 
abuses  were  far  more  vividlypresenttoher  than  the  improvements. 
In  general,  the  people  who  thronged  these  splendid  rooms  were 
to  her  merely  the  incompetent  membei'S  of  a  useless  class.  The 
nation  would  do  away  with  them  in  time !  Meanwhile  it  might  at 
least  be  asked  of  them  that  they  should  practise  their  profession 
of  landowning,  such  as  it  was,  with  greater  conscience  and  intelli- 
gence—  that  they  should  not  shirk  its  opportunities  or  idle  them 
away.  And  she  could  point  out  those  who  did  both  —  scandal- 
oiisly,  intolerably.  Once  or  twice  she  thought  passionately  of 
Minta  Hurd,  washing  and  mending  all  day,  in  her  damp  cottage  ; 
or  of  the  Pattons  in  "  the  parish  house,"  thankful  after  sixty  years 
of  toil  for  a  hovel  whei'e  the  rain  came  through  the  thatch,  and 
where  the  smoke  choked  you,  unless,  with  the  thermometer  below 
freezing-point,  you  opened  the  door  to  the  blast.  Why  should  these 
people  have  all  the  gay  clothes,  the  flowers,  the  jewels,  the  delicate 
food  —  all  the  delight  and  all  the  leisure?  And  those,  nothing! 
Her  soul  rose  against  what  she  saw  as  she  stood  there,  going 
through  her  part.  Wharton's  very  words,  every  inflection  of  his 
voice  was  in  her  ears,  playing  chorus  to  the  scene. 

But  when  these  first  introductions,  these  little  empty  talks  of 


206  MARCELLA  book  ii 

three  or  four  phrases  apiece,  and  all  of  them  alike,  were  nearly- 
done  with,  Marcella  looked  eagerly  round  for  INIary  Harden.  There 
she  was,  sitting  quietly  against  the  wall  in  a  remote  corner,  her 
plain  face  all  smiles,  her  little  feet  dancing  under  the  white  muslin 
frock  which  she  had  fashioned  for  herself  with  so  much  paiit  imder 
Marcella's  directions.  Miss  Raeburn  was  called  away  to  find  an 
arm-chair  for  some  dowager  of  importance ;  Marcella  took  advan- 
tage of  the  break  and  of  the  end  of  a  dance  to  hurry  down  the 
room  to  Mary.  Aldoiis,  who  was  talking  to  old  Sir  Charles  Leven, 
Frank's  father,  a  few  steps  off,  nodded  and  smiled  to  her  as  he  saw 
her  move. 

"Have  you  been  dancing,  Mary?"  she  said  severely. 

"I  wouldn't  for  worlds!  I  never  was  so  much  amused  in  my 
life.  Look  at  those  girls  —  those  sisters  —  in  the  huge  velvet 
sleeves,  like  coloured  balloons!  —  and  that  old  lady  in  the  pink 
tulle  and  diamonds.  —  I  do  so  want  to  get  her  her  cloa.k!  And 
those  Lancers !  —  I  never  could  have  imagined  people  danced  like 
that.  They  didn't  dance  them  —  they  romped  them  !  It  wasn't 
beautiful —  was  it  V  " 

"  Why  do  you  expect  an  English  crowd  to  do  anything  beauti- 
ful?    If  we  could  do  it,  we  shoiild  be  too  ashamed." 

"  But  it  is  beautiful,  all  the  same,  you  scornful  person ! "  cried 
Mary,  dragging  her  friend  down  beside  her.  "  How  pretty  the 
girls  are !  And  as  for  the  diamonds,  I  never  saw  anything  so 
wonderful.     I  wish  I  could  have  made  Charles  come  !  " 

"  Wouldn't  he  ?  " 

"  No  "  —  she  looked  a  little  ti-oubled  —  "  he  couldn't  think  it 
would  be  quite  right.  But  I  don't  know  —  a  sight  like  this  takes 
me  off  my  feet,  shakes  me  up,  and  does  me  a  world  of  good ! " 

"  You  dear,  simple  thing ! "  said  Marcella,  slipping  her  hand 
into  Mary's  as  it  lay  on  the  bench. 

"Oh,  you  needn't  be  so  superior!"  cried  Mary,  —  "not  for  an- 
other year  at  least.  I  don't  believe  you  5ire  much  more  used  to  it 
than  I  am !  " 

"  If  you  mean,"  said  Marcella,  "  that  I  was  never  at  anything  so 
big  and  splendid  as  this  before,  you  are  quite  right." 

And  she  looked  round  the  room  with  that  curious,  cold  air  of 
personal  detachment  from  all  she  saw,  which  had  often  struck 
Mary,  and  to-night  made  her  indignant. 

"  Then  enjoy  it !  "  she  said,  laughing  and  frowning  at  the  same 
time.  "  That's  a  much  more  plain  duty  for  you  than  it  was  for 
Charles  to  stay  at  home  —  there  !     Haven't  you  been  dancing?  " 

"No,  Mr.  Raeburn  doesn't  dance.  But  he  thinks  he  can  get 
through  the  next  Lancers  if  I  will  steer  him." 

"  Then  I  shall  find  a  seat  where  I  can  look  at  you,"  said  Mary, 


CHAP,  vn  MARCELLA  207 

decidedly.  "  Ah,  there  is  Mr.  Raeburn  coming  to  introduce  some- 
body to  you.     I  knew  they  wouldn't  let  you  sit  here  long." 

Aldous  brought  up  a  young  Guardsman,  who  boldly  asked  Miss 
Boyce  for  the  pleasure  of  a  dance.  Marcella  consented;  and  off 
they  swept  into  a  room  which  was  only  just  beginning  to  till  for 
the  new  dance,  and  where,  thei'efore,  for  the  moment  the  young 
grace  of  both  had  free  play.  Marcella  had  been  an  indefatigable 
dancer  in  the  old  London  days  at  those  students'  parties,  with 
their  dyed  gloves  and  lemonade  suppers,  which  were  running  in 
her  head  now,  as  she  swayed  to  the  rhythm  of  this  perfect  band. 
The  mere  delight  in  movement  came  back  to  her ;  and  while  they 
danced,  she  danced  with  all  her  heart.  Then  in  the  pauses  she 
would  lean  against  the  wall  beside  her  partner,  and  rack  her  brain 
to  find  a  word  to  say  to  him.  As  for  anything  that  he  said,  every 
word  —  whether  of  Ascot,  or  the  last  Academy,  or  the  new  plays, 
or  the  hunting  and  the  elections  —  sounded  to  her  more  vapid  than 
the  last. 

Meanwhile  Aldous  stood  near  Mary  Harden  and  watched  the 
dancing  figure.  He  had  never  seen  her  dance  before.  Mary  shyly 
stole  a  look  at  him  from  time  to  time. 

"  Well,"  he  said  at  last,  stooping  to  his  neighbour,  "  what  are 
you  thinking  of  ?  " 

"  I  think  she  is  a  dream  !  "  said  Mary,  flushing  witli  the  pleasure 
of  being  able  to  say  it.  They  wei-e  great  friends,  he  and  she,  and 
to-night  somehow  she  was  not  a  bit  afraid  of  him. 

Aldous's  eye  sj)arkled  a  moment ;  then  he  looked  down  at  her 
with  a  kind  smile. 

"  If  you  suppose  I  am  going  to  let  you  sit  here  all  night,  you 
are  very  much  mistaken.  Marcella  gave  me  precise  instructions. 
I  am  going  off  this  moment  to  find  somebody." 

"Mr.  Raeburn  —  don't !  "  cried  Mary,  catching  at  him.  But  he 
was  gone,  and  she  was  left  in  trepidation,  imagining  the  sort  of 
formidable  young  man  who  was  soon  to  be  presented  to  her,  and 
shaking  at  the  thought  of  him. 

When  the  dance  was  over  Marcella  returned  to  ]\Iiss  Raeburn, 
who  was  standing  at  the  door  into  the  corridor  and  had  beckoned 
to  her.  She  went  through  a  number  of  new  introductions,  and 
declared  to  herself  that  she  was  doing  all  she  could.  JNliss  Raeburn 
was  not  so  well  satisfied. 

"Why  can't  she  smile  and  chatter  like  other  girls?"  thought 
Aunt  Neta,  impatiently.  "It's  her  'ideas,'  I  suppose.  What 
rubbish !     There,  now  —  just  see  the  diiference  !  " 

For  at  the  moment  Lady  Winterbourne  came  up,  and  instantly 
Marcella  was  all  smiles  and  talk,  holding  her  friend  by  both  hands, 
clinging  to  her  almost. 


208  MAECELLA  book  ii 

"  Oh,  do  come  here ! "  she  said,  leading  her  into  a  corner. 
"  There's  such  a  crowd,  and  I  say  all  the  wrong  things.  There  !  " 
with  a  sigh  of  relief.     "  Now  I  feel  myself  protected." 

"  I  mustn't  keep  you,"  said  Lady  Winterbourne,  a  little  taken 
aback  by  her  effusion.     "  Everybody  is  wanting  to  talk  to  you." 

"  Oh,  I  know !  There  is  Miss  Raeburn  looking  at  me  severely 
already.     But  I  must  do  as  I  like  a  little." 

"You  ought  to  do  as  Aldous  likes,"  said  Lady  Winterbourne, 
suddenly,  in  her  deepest  and  most  tragic  voice.  It  seemed  to  her 
a  moment  had  come  for  admonition,  and  she  seized  it  hastily. 

Marcella  stared  at  her  in  surprise.  She  knew  by  now  that  when 
Lady  Winterbourne  looked  most  forbidding  she  was  in  reality 
most  shy.     But  still  she  was  taken  aback. 

"Why  do  you  say  that,  I  wonder?"  she  asked,  half  reproach- 
fully. "I  have  been  behaving  myself  quite  nicely  —  I  have 
indeed ;    at  least,  as  nicely  as  I  knew  how." 

Lady  Winterboiirne's  tragic  air  yielded  to  a  slow  smile. 

"  You  look  very  well,  my  dear.  That  white  becomes  you  charm- 
ingly ;  so  do  the  pearls.  I  don't  wonder  that  Aldous  always  knows 
where  you  are." 

Marcella  raised  her  eyes  and  caught  those  of  Aldous  fixed  upon 
her  from  the  other  side  of  the  room.  She  blushed,  smiled  slightly, 
and  looked  away. 

"  Who  is  that  tall  man  just  gone  up  to  speak  to  him?"  she  asked 
of  her  companion. 

"  That  is  Lord  Wandle,"  said  Lady  Winterbourne,  "  and  his 
plain  second  wife  behind  him.  Edward  always  scolds  me  for  not 
admiring  him.  He  says  women  know  nothing  at  all  about  men's 
looks,  and  that  Lord  Wandle  was  the  most  splendid  man  of  his 
time.     But  I  always  think  it  an  unpleasant  face." 

"  Lord  Wandle  !  "  exclaimed  Marcella,  frowning.  "  Oh,  please 
come  with  me,  dear  Lady  Winterbourne !  I  know  he  is  asking 
Aldous  to  introduce  him,  and  I  won't  —  no  I  will  not  —  be  intro- 
duced to  him." 

And  laying  hold  of  her  astonished  companion,  she  drew  her 
hastily  through  a  doorway  near,  walked  quickly,  still  gripping  her, 
through  two  connected  rooms  beyond,  and  finally  landed  her  and 
herself  on  a  sofa  in  Lord  Maxwell's  library,  pursued  meanwhile 
through  all  her  hurried  course  by  the  curious  looks  of  an  observant 
throng. 

"That  man !  — no,  that  would  really  have  been  too  much  !  "  said 
Marcella,  using  her  large  feather  fan  with  stormy  energy. 

"  Wha-t  is  the  matter  with  you,  my  dear?"  said  Lady  Winter- 
bourne in  her  amazement ;  "  and  what  is  the  matter  with  Lord 
Wandle?" 


CHAP,  vn  MARCELLA  209 

"You  must  know  !  "  said  IMarcella,  indignantly.  "Oh,  you  7nust 
have  seen  that  case  in  the  paper  last  week  — that  shocking  case  !  A 
woman  and  two  children  died  in  one  of  his  cottages  of  "blood-pois- 
oning—  nothing  in  the  world  but  his  neglect  —  his  brutal  neglect !  " 
Her  breast  heaved ;  she  seemed  almost  on  the  point  of  w^eeping. 
"The  agent  was  appealed  to — did  nothing.  Then  the  clergyman 
wrote  to  him  direct,  and  got  an  answer.  The  answer  was  pub- 
lished. For  cruel  insolence  I  never  saw  anything  like  it !  He 
ought  to  be  in  prison  for  manslaughter  —  and  he  comes  here  !  And 
people  laugh  and  talk  with  him  !  " 

She  stopped,  almost  choked  by  her  own  passion.  But  the  inci- 
dent, after  all,  was  only  the  spark  to  the  mine. 

Lady  Winterbourne  stared  at  her  helplessly. 

"  Perhaps  it  isn't  true,"  she  suggested.  "  The  newspapers  put  in 
so  many  lies,  especially  about  us  —  the  landlords.  Edward  says 
one  ought  never  to  believe  them.     Ah,  here  comes  Aldous." 

Aldous,  indeed,  wdth  some  perplexity  on  his  brow,  was  to  be  seen 
approaching,  looking  for  liis  betrothed.  Marcella  dropped  her  fan 
and  sat  erect,  her  angry  colour  fading  into  whiteness. 

"  My  darling  !  I  couldn't  think  what  had  become  of  you.  May 
I  bring  Lord  Wandle  and  introduce  him  to  you  ?  He  is  an  old 
friend  here,  and  my  godfather.  Not  tliat  I  am  particularly  proud 
of  the  relationship,"  he  said,  dropping  his  voice  as  he  stooped  over 
her.  "  He  is  a  soured,  disagreeable  fellow,  and  I  hate  many  of  the 
things  he  does.  But  it  is  an  old  tie,  and  my  grandfather  is  tender 
of  such  things.     Only  a  word  or  two ;  then  I  will  get  rid  of  him." 

"Aldous,  I  can't"  said  Marcella,  looking  up  at  him.  "How 
could  I?     I  saw  that  case.     I  must  be  rude  to  him." 

Aldous  looked  considerably  disturbed. 

"  It  was  very  bad,"  he  said  slowly.  "  I  didn't  know  you  had 
seen  it.     What  shall  I  do?     I  promised  to  go  back  for  him." 

"  Lord  Wandle  —  Miss  Boyce  !  "  said  Miss  llaeburn's  sharp 
little  voice  behind  Aldous.  Aldous,  moving  aside  in  hasty  dis- 
may, saw  his  aunt,  looking  very  detei'mined,  presenting  her  tall 
neighbour,  who  bowed  with  old-fashioned  deference  to  the  girl 
on  the  sofa. 

Lady  Winterbourne  looked  with  trepidation  at  Marcella.  But 
the  social  instinct  held,  to  some  extent.  Ninety-nine  women  can 
threaten  a  scene  of  the  kind  Lady  Winterbourne  dreaded,  for  one 
that  can  carry  it  through.  Marcella  wavered;  then,  with  her 
most  forbidding  air,  she  made  a  scarcely  perceptible  return  of 
Lord  Wandle's  bow. 

"  Did  you  escape  in  here  out  of  the  heat  ?  ".  he  asked  her.  "  But 
I  am  afraid  no  one  lets  you  escape  to-night.  The  occasion  is  too 
interesting." 


210  MARCELLA  book  ii 

Marcella  made  no  reply.  Lady  Winterbourne  threw  iu  a 
nervous  remark  on  the  crowd. 

"  Oh,  yes,  a  great  crush,"  said  Lord  Wandle.  "  Of  course,  we 
all  come  to  see  Aldous  happy.  How  long  is  it,  Miss  Boyce 
since  you  settled  at  Mellor  ?  " 

"  Six  months." 

She  looked  straight  before  her  and  not  at  him  as  she  answered, 
and  her  tone  made  Miss  Raeburn's  blood  boil. 

Lord  Wandle  —  a  battered,  coarsened,  but  still  magnificent- 
looking  man  of  sixty  —  examined  the  speaker  an  instant  from 
half-shut  eyes,  then  put  up  his  hand  to  his  moustache  with  a 
half-smile. 

"  You  like  the  country  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

As  she  spoke  her  reluctant  monosyllable,  the  girl  had  really  no 
conception  of  the  degree  of  hostility  expressed  in  her  manner. 
Instead  she  was  hating  herself  for  her  own  pusillanimity. 

"  And  the  people  ?  " 

"  Some  of  them." 

And  straightway  she  raised  her  fierce  black  eyes  to  his,  and  the 
man  before  her  understood,  as  plainly  as  any  one  need  understand, 
that,  whoever  else  Miss  Boyce  might  like,  she  did  not  like  Lord 
Wandle,  and  wished  for  no  more  conversation  with  him. 

Her  interrogator  turned  to  Aldous  with  smiling  aplomb. 

"  Thank  you,  my  dear  Aldous.  Now  let  me  retire.  No  one 
must  monopolise  your  charming  lady." 

And  again  he  bowed  low  to  her,  this  time  with  an  ironical 
emphasis  not  to  be  mistaken,  and  walked  away. 

Lady  Winterbourne  saw  him  go  up  to  his  wife,  who  had  followed 
him  at  a  distance,  and  speak  to  her  roughly  with  a  frown.  They 
left  the  room,  and  presently,  through  the  other  door  of  the  library 
which  opened  on  the  corridor,  she  saw  them  pass,  as  though  they 
were  going  to  their  carriage. 

Marcella  rose.  She  looked  first  at  Miss  Raeburn  —  then  at 
Aldous. 

"Will  you  take  me  away?"  she  said,  going  up  to  him;  "I  am 
tired  —  take  me  to  yom*  room." 

He  put  her  hand  inside  his  arm,  and  they  pushed  their  way 
through  the  crowd.  Outside  in  the  passage  they  met  Hallin.  He 
had  not  seen  her  before,  and  he  put  out  his  hand.  But  there  was 
something  distant  in  his  gentle  greeting  which  struck  at  this 
moment  like  a  bruise  on  Marcella's  quivering  nerves.  It  came 
across  her  that  for  some  time  past  he  had  made  no  further  advances 
to  her ;  that  his  first  eager  talk  of  friendship  between  himself  and 
her  had  dropped;  that  his  acceptance  of  her  into  his  world  and 


CHAP.  VII  MARCELLA  211 

Aldous's  was  somehow  suspended  —  in  abeyance.  She  bit  her  lip 
tightly  and  hurried  Aldous  along.  Again  the  same  lines  of  gay, 
chatting  people  along  the  corridor,  and  on  either  side  of  the  wide 
staircase  —  greetings,  introduction  —  a  nightmare  of  publicity. 

"  Rather  pronounced  — to  carry  him  off  like  that,"  said  a  clergy- 
man to  his  wife  with  a  kindly  smile,  as  the  two  tall  figures  disap- 
peared along  the  upper  gallery.  "  She  will  have  him  all  to  herself 
before  long." 

Aldous  shut  the  door  of  his  sitting-room  behind  them.  INIarcella 
quickly  drew  her  hand  out  of  his  arm,  and  going  forward  to  the 
mantelpiece  rested  both  elbows  upon  it  and  hid  her  face. 

He  looked  at  her  a  moment  in  distress  and  astonishment,  stand- 
ing a  little  apart.  Then  he  saw  that  she  was  crying.  The  colour 
flooded  into  his  face,  and  going  up  to  her  he  took  her  hand,  which 
was  all  she  would  yield  him,  and,  holding  it  to  his  lips,  said  in  her 
ear  every  soothing  tender  word  that  love's  tutoring  could  bring  to 
mind.  In  his  emotion  he  told  himself  and  her  that  he  admired 
and  loved  her  the  more  for  the  incident  downstairs,  for  the  temper 
she  had  shown !  She  alone  among  them  all  had  had  the  courage 
to  strike  the  true  stern  Christian  note.  As  to  the  annoyance  such 
courage  might  bring  upon  him  and  her  in  the  future  —  even  as  to 
the  trouble  it  might  cause  his  own  dear  folk  —  what  real  matter  ? 
In  these  things  she  should  lead. 

What  could  love  have  asked  better  than  such  a  moment?  Yet 
Marcella's  weeping  was  in  truth  the  weeping  of  despair.  This 
man's  very  sweetness  to  her,  his  very  assumption  of  the  right  to 
comfort  and  approve  her,  roused  in  her  a  desperate  stifled  sense  of 
bonds  that  should  never  have  been  made,  and  that  now  could  not 
be  broken.  It  was  all  plain  to  her  at  last.  His  touch  had  no  thrill 
for  her ;  his  frown  no  terror.  She  had  accepted  him  without  loving 
him,  coveting  what  he  could  give  her.  And  now  it  seemed  to  her 
that  she  cared  nothing  for  anything  he  could  give  !  —  that  the  life 
before  her  was  to  be  one  series  of  petty  conflicts  between  her  and  a 
surrounding  circumstance  which  must  inevitably  in  the  end  be  too 
strong  for  her,  conflicts  from  which  neither  heart  nor  ambition 
could  gain  anything.  She  had  desired  a  great  position  for  what 
she  might  do  with  it.  But  what  could  she  do  with  it !  She  woidd 
be  subdued  —  oh  !  very  quickly!  —  to  great  houses  and  great  people, 
and  all  the  vapid  pomp  and  idle  toil  of  wealth.  All  that  picture 
of  herself,  stooping  from  place  and  power,  to  bind  up  the  wounds 
of  the  people,  in  which  she  had  once  delighted,  was  to  her  now  a 
mere  flimsy  vulgarity.  She  had  been  shown  'other  ideals  — otlier 
ways  —  and  her  pulses  were  still  swaying  under  the  audacity  — 
the  virile  inventive  force  of  the  showman.     Everything  she  had 


212  MARCELLA  book  n 

once  desired  looked  flat  to  her;  everything  she  was  not  to  have, 
glowed  and  shone.  Poverty,  adventure,  passion,  the  joys  of  self- 
realisation  —  these  she  gave  up.  She  would  become  Lady  Maxwell, 
make  friends  with  Miss  Raeburn,  and  wear  the  family  diamonds ! 
Then,  in  the  midst  of  her  rage  with  herself  and  fate,  she  drew 
herself  away,  looked  up,  and  caught  full  the  eyes  of  Aldous  Rae- 
burn. Conscience  stung  and  burned.  What  was  this  life  she 
had  dared  to  trifle  with — this  man  she  had  dared  to  treat  as  a 
mere  pawn  in  her  own  game?  She  gave  way  utterly,  appalled  at 
her  own  misdoing,  and  behaved  like  a  penitent  child.  Aldous, 
astonished  and  alarmed  by  her  emotions  and  by  the  wild  inco- 
herent things  she  said,  won  his  way  at  last  to  some  moments  of 
divine  happiness,  when,  leaving  her  trembling  hand  in  his,  she 
sat  submissively  beside  him,  gradually  quieting  down,  summoning 
back  her  smiles  and  her  beauty,  and  letting  him  call  her  all  the 
fond  names  he  would. 

CHAPTER   VIII 

Scarcely  a  word  was  exchanged  between  Marcella  and  her 
mother  on  the  drive  home.  Yet  under  ordinary  circumstances 
Marcella's  imagination  would  have  found  some  painful  exercise 
in  the  effort  to  find  out  in  what  spirit  her  mother  had  taken  the 
evening  —  the  first  social  festivity  in  which  Richard  Boyce's  wife 
had  taken  part  for  sixteen  years.  In  fact,  Mrs.  Boyce  had  gone 
through  it  very  quietly.  After  her  first  public  entry  on  Lord 
Maxwell's  arm  she  had  sat  in  her  corner,  taking  keen  note  of 
everything,  enjoying  probably  the  humours  of  her  kind.  Several 
old  acquaintances  who  had  seen  her  at  Mellor  as  a  young  wife  in 
her  first  married  years  had  come  up  with  some  trepidation  to 
speak  to  her.  She  had  received  them  with  her  usual  well-bred 
indifference,  and  they  had  gone  away  under  the  impression  that 
she  regarded  herself  as  restored  to  society  by  this  great  match 
that  her  daughter  was  making.  Lady  Winterbourne  had  been 
shyly  and  therefore  formidably  kind  to  her;  and  both  Lord  Max- 
well and  Miss  Raeburn  had  been  genuinely  interested  in  smooth- 
ing the  effort  to  her  as  much  as  they  could.  She  meanwhile 
watched  Marcella  —  except  through  the  encounter  with  Lord 
Wandle,  which  she  did  not  see  —  and  found  some  real  pleasure 
in  talking  both  to  Aldous  and  to  Hallin. 

Yet  all  through  she  was  preoccupied,  and  towards  the  end  very 
anxious  to  get  home,  a  state  of  mind  which  prevented  her  from 
noticing  Marcella's  changed  looks  after  her  reappearance  with 
Aldous  in  the  ball-room,  as  closely  as  she  otherwise  might  have 
done.     Yet  the  mother  had  observed  that  the  end  of  Marcella's 


CHAP.  VIII  MARCELLA  213 

progress  had  been  somewhat  different  from  the  beginning;  that 
the  girl's  greetings  had  beeia  gentler,  her  smiles  softer ;  and  that 
in  particular  she  had  taken  some  pains,  some  wistful  pains,  to 
make  Hallin  talk  to  her.  Lord  Maxwell  —  ignorant  of  the  Wandle 
incident  —  was  charmed  with  her,  and  openly  said  so,  both  to  the 
mother  and  Lady  Winterbourne,  in  his  hearty  old  inan's  way. 
Only  Miss  Raeburn  held  indignantly  aloof,  and  would  not  pre- 
tend, even  to  Mrs.  Boyce. 

And  now  Marcella  was  tired  —  dead  tired,  she  said  to  herself, 
both  in  mind  and  body.  She  lay  back  in  the  carriage,  trying  to 
sink  herself  in  lier  own  fatigue,  to  forget  eveiything,  to  think  of 
nothing.  Outside  the  night  was  mild,  and  the  moon  clear.  For 
some  days  past,  after  the  break  up  of  the  long  frost,  there  had 
been  heavy  rain.  Now  the  rain  had  cleared  away,  and  in  the  air 
there  was  already  an  early  promise  of  spring.  As  she  walked 
home  from  the  village  that  afternoon  she  had  felt  the  buds  and 
the  fields  stirring. 

When  they  got  home,  Mrs.  Boyce  turned  to  her  daughter  at  the 
head  of  the  stairs,  "  Shall  I  unlace  your  dress,  Marcella?  " 

"  Oh  no,  thank  you.     Can  I  help  you  ?  " 

"  No.     Good-night." 

"Mamma!  "  Marcella  turned  and  ran  after  her.  "I  should  like 
to  know  how  papa  is.     I  will  wait  here  if  you  will  tell  me." 

Mrs.  Boyce  looked  surprised.  Then  she  went  into  her  room 
and  shut  the  door.  Marcella  waited  outside,  leaning  against  the 
old  oak  gallery  which  ran  round  the  hall,  her  candle  the  one  spot 
of  light  and  life  in  the  great  dark  house. 

"He  seems  to  have  slept  well,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  reappearing, 
and  speaking  under  her  breath.  "He  has  not  taken  the  opiate  I 
left  for  him,  so  he  cannot  have  been  in  pain.     Good-night." 

Marcella  kissed  her  and  went.  Somehow,  in  her  depression  of 
nerve  and  will,  she  was  loth  to  go  away  by  herself.  The  loneliness 
of  the  night,  and  of  her  wing  of  the  house,  weighed  upon  her; 
the  noises  made  by  the  old  boards  under  her  steps,  the  rustling 
draughts  from  the  dark  passages  to  right  and  left  startled  and 
troubled  her ;  she  found  herself  childishly  fearing  lest  her  candle 
should  go  out. 

Yet,  as  she  descended  the  two  steps  to  the  passage  outside  her 
door,  she  could  have  felt  little  practical  need  of  it,  for  the 
moonlight  was  streaming  in  through  its  uncovered  windows,  not 
directly,  but  reflected  from  the  Tudor  front  of  the  house  which 
ran  at  right  angles  to  this  passage,  and  was  to-night  a  shining 
silver  palace,  every  battlement,  window,  and  moulding  in  sharpest 
light  and  shade  under  the  radiance  of  the  night.  Beneath  her 
feet,  as  she  looked  out  into  Cedar  Garden,  was  a  deep  triangle  of 


214  MARCELLA  book  ii 

shadow,  thrown  by  that  part  of  the  building  in  which  she  stood ; 
and  beyond  the  garden  the  barred  black  masses  of  the  cedars 
closing  up  the  view  lent  additional  magic  to  the  glittering  unsub- 
stantial fabric  of  the  moonlit  house,  which  was,  as  it  were,  embos- 
omed and  framed  among  them.  She  paused  a  moment,  struck  by 
the  strangeness  and  beauty  of  the  spectacle.  The  Tudor  front 
had  the  air  of  some  fairy  banqueting-hall  lit  by  unearthly  hands 
for  some  weird  gathering  of  ghostly  knights.  Then  she  turned  to 
her  rooni,  impatiently  longing  in  her  sick  fatigue  to  be  quit  of  her 
dress  and  ornaments  and  tumble  into  sleep. 

Yet  she  made  no  hurry.  She  fell  on  the  first  chair  that  offered. 
Her  candle  behind  her  had  little  power  over  the  glooms  of  the 
dark  tapestried  room,  but  it  did  serve  to  illuminate  the  lines  of 
her  own  form,  as  she  saw  it  reflected  in  the  big  glass  of  her  ward- 
robe, straight  in  front  of  her.  She  sat  with  her  hands  round  her 
knees,  absently  looking  at  herself,  a  white  long-limbed  apparition 
struck  out  of  the  darkness.  But  she  was  conscious  of  nothing  save 
one  mounting  overwhelming  passionate  desire,  almost  a  cry. 

Mr.  Wharton  must  go  away  —  he  must  —  or  she  could  not  bear 
it. 

Quick  alternations  of  insight,  memory,  self-recognition,  self-sui'- 
render,  rose  and  broke  upon  her.  At  last,  physical  weariness 
recalled  her.     She  put  up  her  hands  to  take  off  her  pearls. 

As  she  did  so,  she  started,  hearing  a  noise  that  made  her  tm'n 
her  head.  Just  outside  her  door  a  little  spiral  staii'case  led  down 
from  her  corridor  to  the  one  below,  which  ran  at  the  back  of  the 
old  library,  and  opened  into  the  Cedar  Garden  at  its  further  end. 

Steps  surely  —  light  steps  —  along  the  corridor  outside,  and  on 
the  staircase.  Nor  did  they  die  away.  She  could  still  hear  them, 
—  as  she  sat,  arrested,  straining  her  ears,  —  pacing  slowly  along 
the  lower  passage. 

Her  heart,  after  its  pause,  leapt  into  fluttering  life.  This  room 
of  hers,  the  two  passages,  the  library,  and  the  staircase,  I'epresented 
that  part  of  the  house  to  which  the  ghost  stories  of  MeUor  clung 
most  persistently.  Substantially  the  block  of  building  was  of  early 
Tudor  date,  but  the  passages  and  the  staircase  had  been  alterations 
made  with  some  clumsiness  at  the  time  of  the  erection  of  the 
eighteenth-century  front,  with  a  view  to  bringing  these  older 
rooms  into  the  general  plan.  Marcella,  however,  might  demon- 
strate as  she  pleased  that  the  Boyce  who  was  supposed  to  have 
stabbed  himself  on  the  staircase  died  at  least  forty  years  before 
the  staircase  was  made.  None  the  less,  no  servant  would  go  alone, 
if  she  could  help  it,  into  either  passage  after  dark ;  and  there  was 
much  excited  marvelling  how  Miss  Boyce  could  sleep  where  she 
did.     Deacon  abounded  in  stories  of  things  spiritual  and  peripa- 


CHAP.  VIII  MARCELLA  215 

tetic,  of  steps,  groans,  lights  in  the  library,  and  the  rest.     Marcella 
had  consistently  laughed  at  her. 

Yet  all  the  same  she  had  made  in  secret  a  very  diligent  pursuit 
of  this  ghost,  settling  in  the  end  to  a  certain  pique  with  him  that 
he  would  not  show  himself  to  so  ardent  a  daughter  of  the  house. 
She  had  sat  up  waiting  for  hiin ;  she  had  lingered  in  the  corridor 
outside,  and  on  the  stairs,  expecting  him.  By  the  help  of  a  fa- 
vourite carpenter  she  had  made  researches  into  roofs,  water-pipes, 
pjinelling,  and  old  cupboards,  in  the  hope  of  finding  a  practical 
clue  to  him.     In  vain. 

■  Yet  here  were  the  steps  —  regular,  soft,  unmistakable.  The 
colour  rushed  back  into  her  cheeks !  Her  eager  healthy  youth 
forgot  its  woes,  flung  off  its  weariness,  and  panted  for  an  advent- 
ure, a  discovery.  Springing  up,  slie  threw  her  fur  wrap  round  her 
again,  and  gently  opened  the  door,  listening. 

For  a  minute,  nothing  —  then  a  few  vague  sounds  as  of  some- 
thing living  and  moving  down  below — surely  in  the  library? 
Then  the  steps  again.  Impossible  that  it  should  be  any  one 
breaking  in.  No  burglar  would  walk  so  leisurely.  She  closed 
her  door  behind  her,  and,  gatheriiig  her  white  satin  skirts  about 
her,  she  descended  the  staircase. 

The  corridor  below  was  in  radiant  moonlight,  chequered  by  the 
few  pieces  of  old  furniture  it  contained,  and  the  black  and  white 
of  the  old  portrait  prints  hanging  on  the  walls.  At  first  her  seek- 
ing, excited  eyes  could  make  out  nothing.  Then  in  a  flash  thej^ 
perceived  the  figure  of  Wharton  at  the  further  end  near  the  gar- 
den door,  leaning  against  one  of  the  windows.  He  was  apparently 
looking  out  at  the  moonlit  house,  and  she  caught  the  faint  odour 
of  a  cigarette. 

Her  first  instinct  was  to  turn  and  fly.  But  Wharton  had  seen 
her.  As  he  looked  about  him  at  the  sound  of  her  approach,  the 
moon,  which  was  just  rounding  the  corner  of  the  house,  struck 
on  her  full,  amid  the  shadows  of  the  staircase,  and  she  heard  his 
exclamation. 

Dignity — a  natui'al  pride  —  made  her  pause.  She  came  for- 
ward slowly — he  eagerly. 

"I  heard  footsteps,"  she  said,  with  a  coldness  under  which  he 
plainly  saw  her  embarrassment.  "I  could  not  suppose  that  any- 
body was  still  up,  so  I  came  down  to  see." 

He  was  silent  a  moment,  scanning  her  with  laughing  eyes.  Then 
he  shook  his  head.    "Confess  you  took  me  for  the  ghost?  "  he  said. 

She  hesitated ;  then  must  laugh  too.  She  herself  had  told  him 
the  stories,  so  that  his  guess  was  natural. 

"  Perhaps  I  did,"  she  said.  "One  more  disappointment !  Good- 
night." 


216  MARCELLA  book  ii 

He  looked  after  her  a  quick  undecided  moment  as  she  made  a 
step  in  front  of  him,  then  at  the  half-burnt  cigarette  he  held  in 
his  hand,  threw  the  end  away  with  a  hasty  gesture,  overtook  her 
and  walked  beside  her  along  the  corridor. 

"I  heard  you  and  your  mother  come  in,"  he  said,  as  though 
explaining  himself.  "  Then  I  waited  till  I  thought  you  must  both 
be  asleep,  and  came  down  here  to  look  at  that  wonderful  effect  on 
the  old  house."  He  pointed  to  the  silver  palace  outside.  "  I  have 
a  trick  of  being  sleepless  —  aftrick,  too,  of  wandering  at  night. 
My  own  people  know  it,  and  bear  with  me,  but  I  am  abashed  that 
you  should  have  found  me  out.  Just  tell  me  —  in  one  word  —  how 
the  ball  went?" 

He  paused  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  his  hands  on  his  sides,  as 
keenly  wide-awake  as  though  it  were  three  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon instead  of  three  in  the  morning. 

Woman-like,  her  mood  instantly  shaped  itself  to  his. 

"  It  went  very  well,"  she  said  perversely,  putting  her  satin- 
slippered  foot  on  the  first  step.  "  There  were  six  hundred  jjeople 
upstairs,  and  four  hundred  coachmen  and  footmen  downstairs, 
according  to  our  man.     Everybody  said  it  was  splendid." 

His  piercing  enigmatic  gaze  could  not  leave  her.  As  he  had  often 
frankly  warned  her,  he  was  a  man  in  quest  of  sensations.  Cer- 
tainly, in  this  strange  meeting  with  Aldous  Raeburn's  betrothed, 
in  the  midst  of  the  sleep-bound  house,  he  had  found  one.  Her 
eyes  were  heavy,  her  cheek  pale.  But  in  this  soft  vague  light  — 
white  arms  and  neck  now  hidden,  now  revealed  by  the  cloak  she 
had  thrown  about  her  glistening  satin — she  was  more  enchanting 
than  he  had  ever  seen  her.     His  breath  quickened. 

He  said  to  himself  that  he  would  make  Miss  Boyce  stay  and 
talk  to  him.  What  harm  —  to  her  or  to  Raeburn  ?  Raeburn  would 
have  chances  enough  before  long.  Why  admit  his  monopoly 
before  the  time  ?  She  was  not  in  love  with  him !  As  to  Mrs. 
Grundy  —  absurd!  What  in  the  true  reasonableness  of  things 
was  to  prevent  human  beings  from  conversing  by  night  as  well 
as  by  day  ? 

"One  moment"  —  he  said,  delaying  her.  "You  must  be  dead 
tired  —  too  tired  for  romance.  Else  I  should  say  to  you,  turn 
aside  an  instant  and  look  at  the  library.  It  is  a  sight  to 
remember." 

Inevitably  she  glanced  behind  her,  and  saw  that  the  library 
door  was  ajar.  He  flung  it  open,  and  the  great  room  showed 
wide,  its  high  domed  roof  lost  in  shadow,  while  along  the  bare 
floor  and  up  the  latticed  books  crept,  here  streaks  and  fingers,  and 
there  wide  breadths  of  light  from  the  unshuttered  and  curtainless 
windows. 


CHAP.  VIII  MARCELLA  217 

"  Isn't  it  the  very  poetry  of  night  and  solitude  ?  "  he  said,  look- 
ing in  with  her.  "  You  love  the  place  ;  byit  did  you  ever  see  it  so 
lovable  ?  The  dead  are  here ;  you  did  right  to  come  and  seek 
them!  Look  at  your  namesake,  in  that  ray.  To-night  she  lives*! 
She  knows  that  is  her  husband  opprfite  —  those  are  her  books 
beside  her.  And  the  rebel !  "  —  he  pointed  smiling  to  the  portrait 
of  John  Boyce.     "  When  you  are  gone  I  shall  shut  myself  up  here 

—  sit  in  his  chair,  invoke  him  —  aiid  put  my  speech  together.  I 
am  nervous  about  to-morrow  "  (he  was  bound,  as  she  knew,  to  a 
large  Labour  Congress  in  the  INIidlands,  where  he  was  to  preside), 
"  and  sleep  will  make  no  terms  with  me.  Ah  !  —  how  strange  ! 
Who  can  that  be  passing  the  avenue  ?  " 

He  made  a  step  or  two  into  the  room,  and  put  up  his  hand 
to  his  brow,  looking  intently.  Involuntarily,  yet  with  a  thrill, 
Marcella  followed.     They  walked  to  the  window. 

"  It  is  Hurd ! "  she  cried  in  a  tone  of  distress,  pressing  her  face 
against  the  glass.  "  Out  at  this  time,  and  with  a  gun !  Oh,  dear, 
dear !  " 

There  could  be  no  question  that  it  was  Hurd.  Wharton  had 
seen  him  linger  in  the  shadowy  edge  of  the  avenue,  as  though 
reconnoitring,  and  now,  as  he  stealthily  crossed  the  moonlit  grass, 
his  slouching  dwarf's  figure,  his  large  head,  and  the  short  gun 
under  his  arm,  were  all  plainly  visible. 

"What  do  you  suppose  he  is  after  ?  "  said  Wharton,  still  gazing, 
his  hands  in  his  pockets. 

"  I  don't  know ;  he  wouldn't  poach  on  our  land ;  I'm  siire  he 
wouldn't!     Besides,  there  is  nothing  to  poach."  —  Wharton  smiled. 

—  "  He  must  be  going,  after  all,  to  Lord  Maxwell's  coverts  !  They 
are  just  beyond  the  avenue,  on  the  side  of  the  hill.  Oh  !  it  is  too 
disappointing  !     Can  we  do  anything  ?  " 

She  looked  at  her  companion  with  troubled  eyes.  This  incur- 
sion of  something  sadly  and  humanly  real  seemed  suddenly  to 
have  made  it  natural  to  be  standing  beside  him  there  at  that 
strange  hour.     Her  conscience  was  soothed. 

Wharton  shook  his  head. 

"  I  don't  see  what  we  could  do.  How  strong  the  instinct  is  !  I 
1  old  you  that  woman  had  a  secret.  Well,  it  is  only  one  form  — 
the  squalid  peasant's  form  —  of  the  same  instinct  which  sends  the 
young  fellows  of  our  class  ruffling  it  and  chancing  it  all  over  the 
world.  It  is  the  instinct  to  take  one's  fling,  to  get  out  of  the  rut, 
to  claim  one's  innings  against  the  powers  that  be —  Nature,  or  the 
law,  or  convention." 

"  I  know  all  that  —  I  never  blame  them  !  "  ^-  cried  Marcella  — 
"but  just  now  it  is  so  monstrous  —  so  dangerous  !  Westall  specially 
alert — and  this  gang  about!     Besides,  I  got  him  work  from  Lord 


218  MARCELLA  book  n 

Maxwell,  and  made  him  promise  me  —  for  the  wife  and  children's 
sake." 

Wharton  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  I  should  think  Westall  is  right,  and  that  the  gang  have  got 
hold  of  him.  It  is  what  always  happens.  The  local  man  is  the 
cat'spaw.  —  So  you  are  sorry  for  him  —  this  man  ?  "  he  said  in 
another  tone,  facing  round  upon  her. 

She  looked  astonished,  and  drew  herself  up  nervously,  turning 
at  the  same  time  to  leave  the  room.  But  before  she  could  reply 
he  hurried  on : 

"  He  —  may  escape  his  risk.  Give  your  pity.  Miss  Boyce,  rather 
to  one  —  who  has  not  escaped !  " 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  she  said,  unconsciously  laying 
a  hand  on  one  of  the  old  chairs  beside  her  to  steady  herself. 
"  But  it  is  too  late  to  talk.     Good-night,  Mr.  AVharton." 

"  Good-bye,"  he  said  quietly,  yet  with  a  low  emphasis,  at  the 
same  time  moving  out  of  her  path.  She  stopped,  hesitating.  Be- 
neath the  lace  and  faded  flowers  on  her  breast  he  could  see  how 
her  heart  beat. 

"  Not  good-bye  ?     You  are  coming  back  after  the  meeting  ?  " 

"I  think  not.  I  must  not  inflict  myself  —  on  Mrs.  Boyce  —  any 
more.  You  will  all  be  very  busy  during  the  next  three  weeks.  It 
would  be  an  intrusion  if  I  were  to  come  back  at  such  a  time  — 
especially  —  considering  the  fact  "  —  he  spoke  slowly  —  "  that  I 
am  as  distasteful  as  I  now  know  myself  to  be,  to  your  future 
husband.  Since  you  all  left  to-night  the  house  has  been  very 
quiet.  I  sat  over  the  fire  thinking.  It  grew  clear  to  me.  I  must 
go,  and  go  at  once.  Besides  —  a  lonely  man  as  I  am  must  not 
risk  his  nerve.  His  task  is  set  him,  and  there  are  none  to  stand 
by  him  if  he  fails." 

She  trembled  all  over.  Weariness  and  excitement  made  normal 
self-control  almost  impossible. 

"  Well,  then,  I  must  say  thank  you,"  she  said  indistinctly,  "  for 
you  have  taught  me  a  great  deal." 

"You  will  unlearn  it!  "  he  said  gaily,  recovering  his  self-posses- 
sion, so  it  seemed,  as  she  lost  hers.  "Besides,  before  many  weeks 
are  over  you  will  have  heard  hard  things  of  me.  I  know  that  very 
well.  I  can  say  nothing  to  meet  them.  Nor  should  I  attempt 
anything.  It  may  sound  brazen,  but  that  past  of  mine,  which 
I  can  see  perpetually  pi-esent  in  Aldous  Raeburn's  mind,  for 
instance,  and  which  means  so  much  to  his  good  aunt,  means  to 
me  just  nothing  at  all!  The  doctrine  of  identity  must  be  true  — 
I  must  be  the  same  person  I  was  then.  But,  all  the  same,  what 
I  did  then  does  not  matter  a  straw  to  me  now.  To  all  practical 
purposes  I  am  another  man.     I  was  then  a  youth,  idle,  desceuvre. 


CHAP,  viii  MARCELLA  219 

playing  with  all  the  keys  of  life  in  turn.  T  have  now  unlocked 
the  path  that  suits  me.  Its  quest  has  transformed  ine  —  as  I  be- 
lieve, ennobled  me.  I  do  not  ask  Raebuvn  or  any  one  else  to 
believe  it.  It  is  my  own  affair.  Only,  if  we  ever  meet  again 
in  life,  you  and  I,  and  you  think  you  have  reason  to  ask  humilia- 
tion of  me,  do  not  ask  it,  do  not  expect  it.  The  man  you  will 
have  in  your  mind  has  nothing  to  do  with  me.  I  will  not  be 
answerable  for  his  sins." 

As  he  said  these  things  he  was  leaning  lightly  forward,  looking 
up  at  her,  his  arms  resting  on  the  back  of  one  of  the  old  chairs, 
one  foot  crossed  over  the  other.  The  attitude  was  easy  calm  itself. 
The  tone  —  indomitable,  analytic,  reflective  —  matched  it.  Yet,  all 
the  same,  her  woman's  instinct  divined  a  hidden  agitation,  and, 
woman-like,  responded  to  that  and  that  only. 

"  Mr.  Raeburn  will  never  tell  me  old  stories  about  anybody,"  she 
said  proudly.  "I  asked  him  once,  out  —  out  of  curiosity  —  about 
you,  and  he  would  tell  me  nothing." 

"  Generous  !  "  said  Wharton,  drily.     "  I  am  grateful." 

"No !  "  cried  Marcella,  indignantly,  rushing  blindly  at  the  outlet 
for  emotion.  "No  ! — you  are  not  grateful;  you  are  always  judg- 
ing him  harshly — criticising,  despising  what  he  does." 

Wharton  was  silent  a  moment.  Even  in  the  moonlight  she 
could  see  the  reddening  of  his  cheek. 

"  So  be  it,"  he  said  at  last.  "  I  submit.  You  must  know  best. 
But  you?  are  you  always  content?  Does  this  milieu  into  which 
you  are  passing  always  satisfy  you?  To-night,  did  your  royalty 
please  j^ou  ?  will  it  soon  be  enough  for  you  ?  " 

"You  know  it  is  not  enough,"  she  broke  out,  hotly;  "it  is  in- 
sulting that  you  should  ask  in  that  tone.  It  means  that  you  think 
me  a  hypocrite  !  —  and  I  have  given  you  no  cause  —  " 

"  (jood  heavens,  no!"  he  exclaimed,  interrupting  her,  and  speak- 
ing in  a  low,  hurried  voice.  "  I  had  no  motive,  no  reason  for  what 
I  said  —  none  —  but  this,  that  you  are  going  —  that  we  are  part- 
ing. I  spoke  in  gibes  to  make  you  speak  —  somehow  to  strike  — 
to  reach  you.     To-morrow  it  will  be  too  late !  " 

And  before,  almost,  she  knew  that  he  had  moved,  he  had  stooped 
forward,  caught  a  fold  of  her  dress,  pressed  it  to  his  lips,  and 
dropped  it. 

"  Don't  speak,"  he  said  brokenly,  springing  up,  and  standing 
before  her  in  her  path.  "  You  shall  forgive  me  —  I  will  compel  it ! 
See !  here  we  are  on  this  moonlit  space  of  floor,  alone,  in  the  night. 
Very  pi'obably  we  shall  never  meet  again,  except  as  strangers.  Put 
off  convention,  and  speak  to  me,  soul  to  soul !  You  are  not  happy 
altogether  in  this  marriage.  I  know  it.  You  have  as  good  as 
confessed  it.     Yet  you  will  go  through  with  it.     You  have  given 


220  MARCELLA  book  ii 

your  word  —  your  honour  holds  you.  I  recognise  that  it  holds  you. 
I  say  nothing,  not  a  syllable,  against  your  bond!  But  here,  to- 
night, tell  me,  promise  me  that  you  will  make  this  marriage  of 
yours  serve  our  hopes  and  ends,  the  ends  that  you  and  I  have  fore- 
seen together  —  that  it  shall  be  your  instrument,  not  your  chain. 
We  have  been  six  weeks  together.  You  say  you  have  learnt  from 
me ;  you  have !  you  have  given  me  your  mind,  your  heart  to  write 
on,  and  I  have  written.  Hencefoi'ward  you  will  never  look  at  life 
as  you  might  have  done  if  I  had  not  been  here.  Do  you  think  I 
triumph,  that  I  boast?  Ah!  "  he  drew  in  his  breath  —  "What  if 
in  helping  you,  and  teaching  you  — for  I  have  helped  and  taught 
you!  —  I  have  undone  myself?  What  if  I  came  here  the  slave  of 
impersonal  causes,  of  ends  not  my  own?  What  if  I  leave  — 
maimed  —  in  face  of  the  battle  ?  Not  your  fault  ?  No,  perhaps 
not!  but,  at  least,  you  owe  me  some  gentleness  now,  in  these  last 
words  —  some  kindness  in  farewell." 

He  came  closer,  held  out  his  hands.  With  one  of  her  own  she 
put  his  back,  and  lifted  the  other  dizzily  to  her  forehead. 

"  Don't  come  near  me  !  "  she  said,  tottering.  "  What  is  it  ?  I 
cannot  see.     Go  !  " 

And  guiding  herself,  as  though  blindfold,  to  a  chair,  she  sank 
upon  it,  and  her  head  dropped.  It  was  the  natural  result  of  a 
moment  of  intense  excitement  coming  upon  nerves  already  strained 
and  tried  to  their  utmost.  She  fought  desperately  against  her 
weakness ;  but  there  was  a  moment  when  all  around  her  swam, 
and  she  knew  nothing. 

Then  came  a  strange  awakening.  What  was  this  room,  this 
weird  light,  these  unfamiliar  forms  of  things,  this  warm  support 
against  which  her  cheek  lay?  She  opened  her  eyes  languidly. 
They  met  Wharton's  half  in  wonder.  He  was  kneeling  beside  her, 
holding  her.  But  for  ;in  instant  she  realised  nothing  except  his 
look,  to  which  her  own  helplessly  replied. 

"  Once  !  "  she  heard  him  whisper.  "  Once  !  Then  nothing  more 
—  for  ever." 

And  stooping,  slowly,  deliberately,  he  kissed  her. 

In  a  stinging  flow,  life,  shame,  returned  upon  her.  She  sti'Uggied 
to  her  feet,  pushing  him  from  her. 

"  You  dared,"  she  said,  "dared  such  a  thing!  " 

She  could  say  no  more ;  but  her  attitude,  fiercely  instinct,  through 
all  her  physical  weakness,  with  her  roused  best  self,  was  speech 
enough.  He  did  not  venture  to  approach  her.  She  walked  away.  He 
heard  the  door  close,  hurrying  steps  on  the  little  stairs,  then  silence. 

He  remained  where  she  had  left  him,  leaning  against  the  latticed 
wall  for  some  time.  When  he  moved  it  was  to  pick  up  a  piece  of 
maidenhair  which  had  dropped  from  her  dress. 


CHAP.  VIII  MARCELLA  221 

"  That  was  a  scene ! "  he  said,  looking  at  it,  and  at  the  trembling 
of  his  own  hand.  "  It  carries  one  back  to  the  days  of  the  Roman- 
tics. Was  I  Alfred  de  Musset?  —  and  she  George  Sand?  Did  any 
of  them  ever  taste  a  more  poignant  moment  than  1  —  when  she  — 
lay  upon  my  breast?  To  be  helpless  —  yet  yield  nothing — it  chal- 
lenged me !     Yet  I  took  no  advantage  —  none.     When  she  looked 

—  when  her  eye,  her  soul,  was,  for  that  instant,  mine,  then  !  — 
Well!  —  the  world  has  rushed  with  me  since  I  saw  her  on  the 
stairs ;  life  can  bring  me  nothing  of  such  a  quality  again.  What 
did  I  say?  —  how  much  did  I  mean?  My  God!  how  can  I  tell? 
I  began  as  an  actor,  did  I  finish  as  a  man?" 

He  paced  up  and  down,  thinking ;  gradually,  by  the  help  of  an 
iron  will  quieting  down  each  rebellious  pulse. 

"That  poacher  fellow  did  me  a  good  turn.  Dare!  the  word 
galled.  But,  after  all,  what  woman  could  say  less?  And  what 
matter  ?     I  have  held  her  in  my  arms,  in  a  setting  —  under  a  moon 

—  worthy  of  her.  Is  not  life  enriched  thereby  beyond  robbery? 
And  what  harm?  Raebm-n  is  not  injured.  ^S'Ae  will  never  tell  — 
and  neither  of  us  will  ever  forget.     Ah  !  — what  was  that?" 

He  walked  quickly  to  the  window.  What  he  had  heard  had 
been  a  dull  report  coming  apparently  from  the  woods  beyond  the 
eastern  side  of  the  avenue.  As  he  reached  the  window  it  was  fol- 
lowed by  a  second. 

"  That  poacher's  gun  ?  —  no  doubt !  "  —  he  strained  his  eyes  in 
vain  —  "  Collision  perhaps  —  and  mischief?  No  matter!  I  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  The  world  is  all  lyric  for  me  to-night.  I 
can  hear  in  it  no  other  rhythm." 

The  night  passed  away.  When  the  winter  morning  broke,  Mar- 
cella  was  lying  with  wide  sleepless  eyes,  waiting  and  pining  for  it. 
Her  candle  still  burnt  beside  her ;  she  had  had  no  courage  for 
darkness,  nor  the  smallest  desire  for  sleep.  She  had  gone  through 
shame  and  anguish.  But  she  would  have  scorned  to  pity  herself. 
Was  it  not  her  natural,  inevitable  portion? 

"I  will  tell  Aldous  everything  —  everything  "  she  said  to  herself 
for  the  hundredth  time,  as  the  light  penetrated.  "  Was  that  only 
seven  striking  —  seven  —  impossible !  " 

She  sat  up  haggard  and  restless,  hardly  able  to  bear  the  thought 
of  the  hours  that  must  pass  before  she  could  see  Aldous  —  put  all 
to  the  touch. 

Suddenly  she  remembered  Hurd  —  then  old  Patton. 

"  He  was  dying  last  night,"  she  thought,  in  her  moral  torment— 
her  passion  to  get  away  from  herself.  *'  Is  he  gone  ?  This  is  the 
hour  when  old  people  die  —  the  dawn.  I  will  go  and  see  —  go  at 
once." 


222  MARCELLA  book  ii 

She  sprang  up.  To  baffle  this  ache  within  her  by  some  act  of 
repentance,  of  social  amends,  however  small,  however  futile  —  to 
propitiate  herself,  if  but  by  a  hairbreadth  —  this,  no  doubt,  was  the 
instinct  at  work.  She  dressed  hastily,  glad  of  the  cold,  glad  of  the 
effort  she  had  to  make  against  the  stiffness  of  her  own  young- 
bones  —  glad  of  her  hunger  and  faintness,  of  everything  physically 
hard  that  had  to  be  fought  and  conquered. 

In  a  very  short  time  she  had  passed  quietly  downstairs  and 
through  the  hall,  greatly  to  the  amazement  of  William,  who  opened 
the  front  door  for  her.  Once  in  the  village  I'oad  the  damp  raw  air 
revived  her  greatly.  She  lifted  her  hot  temples  to  it,  welcoming 
the  waves  of  wet  mist  that  swept  along  the  road,  feeling  her  youth 
come  back  to  her. 

Suddenly  as  she  was  nearing  the  end  of  a  narrow  bit  of  lane 
between  high  hedges,  and  the  first  houses  of  the  village  were  in 
sight,  she  was  stopped  by  a  noise  behind  her  —  a  strange  unac- 
countable noise  as  of  women's  voices,  calling  and  wailing.  It 
startled  and  frightened  her,  and  she  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  road 
waiting. 

Then  she  saw  coming  towards  her  two  women  ninning  at  full 
sjjeed,  crying  and  shouting,  their  aprons  up  to  their  faces. 

"What  is  it?  AVhat  is  the  matter?"  she  asked,  going  to  meet 
them,  and  recognising  two  labourers'  wives  she  knew. 

"  Oh !  miss  —  oh !  miss  !  "  said  the  foremost,  too  v^Tapt  up  in 
her  news  to  be  surprised  at  the  sight  of  her.  "  They've  just  found 
him  —  they're  bringin'  ov  '  im  home ;  they've  got  a  shutter  from 
Muster  Wellin !  'im  at  Disley  Farm.  It  wor  close  by  Disley  AVood 
they  found  'em.  And  there's  one  ov  'is  men  they've  sent  off  ridin' 
for  the  inspector  —  here  he  come,  miss  !     Come  out  o'  th'  way !  " 

They  dragged  her  back,  and  a  young  labourer  galloped  past 
them  on  a  farm  colt,  urging  it  on  to  its  full  pace,  his  face  red 
and  set. 

"  Who  is  found  ?  "  cried  Marcella  —  "  What  is  it  ?  " 

"  Westall,  miss  —  Lor'  bless  you — Shot  him  in  the  head  they 
did  —  blowed  his  brains  right  out  —  and  Charlie  Dynes  —  oh !  he's 
knocked  about  shamf ul  —  the  doctor  don't  give  no  hopes  of  him. 
Oh  deary  —  deary  me!  And  we're  goin'  for  Muster  Harden  —  ee 
must  tell  the  widder  —  or  Miss  Mary  —  none  on  us  can  !  " 

"And  who  did  it?"  said  Marcella,  pale  with  horror,  holding 
her. 

"  Why  the  poachers,  miss.  Them  as  they've  bin  waitin'  for  all 
along  —  and  they  do  say  as  Jim  Hurd's  in  it.    Oh  Lord,  oh  Lord !  " 

Marcella  stood  petrified,  and  let  them  hurry  on. 


CHAP.  IX  MARCELLA  223 


CHAPTER   IX 

The  lane  was  still  again,  save  for  the  unwonted  sounds  coming 
from  the  groups  which  had  gathered  round  the  two  women,  and 
were  now  moving  beside  them  along  the  village  street  a  hundred 
yards  ahead. 

Marcella  stood  in  a  horror  of  memory  —  seeing  Kurd's  figure 
cross  the  moonlit  avenue  from  dark  to  dai'k.  Where  was  he? 
Had  he  escaped?  Suddenly  she  set  off  running,  stung  by  the 
thought  of  what  might  have  already  happened  under  the  eyes  of 
that  unhappy  wife,  those  wretched  children. 

As  she  entered  the  village,  a  young  fellow  ran  up  to  her 
in  breathless  excitement.  "  They've  got  'im,  miss.  He'd  come 
straight  home  —  'adn't  made  no  attempt  to  run.  As  soon  as 
Jenkins "  (Jenkins  was  the  policeman)  "  beared  of  it,  ee  went 
straight  across  to  'is  house,  an'  caught  'im.  Ee  wor  goin'  to  make 
off  —  'is  wife  'ad  been  persuadin'  ov  'im  all  night.  But  they've 
got  him,  miss,  sure  enough  !  " 

The  lad's  exultation  was  horrible.  Marcella  waved  him  aside 
and  ran  on.  A  man  on  horseback  appeared  on  the  road  in  front 
of  her  leading  from  Widrington  to  the  village.  She  recognised 
Aldous  Raeburn,  who  had  checked  his  horse  in  sudden  amaze- 
ment as  he  saw  her  talking  to  the  boy. 

"  My  darling !  what  are  you  here  for  ?  Oh  !  go  home  —  go 
home! — out  of  this  horrible  business.  They  have  sent  for  me  as 
a  magistrate.     Dynes  is  alive  —  I  heg  you  !  —  go  home  !  " 

She  shook  her  head,  out  of  breath  and  speechless  with  running. 
At  the  same  moment  she  and  he,  looking  to  the  right,  caught 
sight  of  the  crowd  standing  in  front  of  Hiird's  cottage. 

A  man  ran  out  from  it,  seeing  the  horse  and  its  rider. 

"  Muster  Raeburn !  Muster  Raeburn  !  They've  cotched  'im  ; 
Jenkins  has  got  'im." 

"  Ah ! "  said  Aldous,  drawing  a  long,  stern  breath ;  "  he  didn't 
try  to  get  off  then?  Marcella !  —  you  are  not  going  there  —  to  that 
house ! " 

He  spoke  in  a  tone  of  the  strongest  remonstrance.  Her  soul 
rose  in  anger  against  it. 

"  I  am  going  to  her,"  she  said  panting ;  —  "  don't  wait." 

And  she  left  him  and  hurried  on. 

As  soon  as  the  crowd  round  the  cottage  saw  her  coming,  they 
divided  to  let  her  pass. 

"  She's  quiet  now,  miss,"  said  a  woman  to  her  significantly, 
nodding  towards  the  hovel.  "  Just  after  Jenkins  got  in  you  could 
hear  her  crying  out  pitiful." 


224  .  MAECELLA  book  ii 

"  That  was  when  they  wor  a-handcuffiu'  hun,"  said  a  man  beside 
her. 

Marcella  shuddered, 

"  Will  they  let  me  in  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  They  won't  let  none  ov  us  in,"  said  the  man.  "  There's  Hurd's 
sister,"  and  he  pointed  to  a  weeping  woman  supported  by  two 
others.  "  They've  kep'  her  out.  But  here's  the  inspector,  miss ; 
you  ask  him." 

The  inspector,  a  shrewd  officer  of  long  experience,  fetched  in 
haste  from  a  mile's  distance,  galloped  up,  and  gave  his  horse  to  a  boy. 

Marcella  went  up  to  him. 

He  looked  at  her  with  sharp  interrogation.  "You  are  Miss 
Boyce  ?     Miss  Boyce  of  Mellor  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  want  to  go  to  the  wife ;  I  will  promise  not  to  get  in  your 
way." 

He  nodded.  The  crowd  let  them  pass.  The  inspector  knocked 
at  the  door,  which  was  cautiously  unlocked  by  Jenkins,  and  the 
two  went  in  together. 

"She's  a  queer  one,"  said  a  thin,  weasel-eyed  man  in  the  crowd 
to  his  neighbour.  "  To  think  o'  her  bein'  in  it  —  at  this  time  o' 
day.  You  could  see  Muster  Raeburn  was  a  tellin'  of  her  to  go 
'ome.     But  she's  alius  pampered  them  Hurds." 

The  speaker  was  Ned  Patton,  old  Patton's  son,  and  Hurd's  com- 
panion on  many  a  profitable  night-walk.  It  was  barely  a  week 
since  he  had  been  out  with  Hurd  on  another  ferreting  expedition, 
some  of  the  proceeds  of  which  were  still  hidden  in  Patton's  out- 
house. But  at  the  present  moment  he  was  one  of  the  keenest  of 
the  crowd,  watching  eagerly  for  the  moment  when  he  should  see 
his  old  comrade  come  out,  trapped  and  checkmated,  bound  safely 
and  surely  to  the  gallows.  The  natural  love  of  incident  and  change 
which  keeps  life  health}'  had  been  starved  in  him  by  his  labourer's 
condition.     This  sudden  excitement  had  made  a  brute  of  him. 

The  man  next  him  grimaced,  and  took  his  pipe  out  of  his  mouth 
a  moment. 

"  She  won't  be  able  to  do  nothin'  for  'im  !  Ther  isn't  a  man  nor 
bo}'^  in  this  'ere  place  as  didn't  know  as  ee  bated  AVestall  like  pison, 
and  would  be  as  like  as  not  to  do  for  'im  some  day.  That'll  count 
agen  'im  now  terrible  strong !     Ee  wor  alius  one  to  blab,  ee  wor." 

"  Well,  an'  Westall  said  jus'  as  much !  "  struck  in  another  voice; 
"theer  wor  sure  to  be  a  fight  iv  ever  Westall  got  at  'im  —  on  the 
job.     You  see  —  they  may  bring  it  in  manslarter  after  all." 

"  'Ow  does  any  one  know  ee  wor  there  at  all  ?  who  seed  him  ?  " 
enquired  a  white-haired  elderly  man,  raising  a  loud  quavering  voice 
from  the  middle  of  the  crowd. 

"  Chai'lie  Dynes  seed  'im,"  cried  several  together. 


CHAP.  IX  MARCELLA  225 

"  How  do  yer  know  ee  seed  'im?  " 

From  the  babel  of  voices  which  followed  the  white-haired  man 
slowly  gathered  the  beginnings  of  the  matter.  Charlie  Dynes, 
Westall's  assistant,  had  been  first  discovered  by  a  horsekeeper  in 
Farmer  Wellin's  em})loyment  as  he  was  going  to  his  work.  The 
lad  had  been  found  under  a  hedge,  bleeding  and  frightfully  injured, 
but  still  alive.  Close  beside  him  was  the  dead  body  of  Westall 
with  shot-wounds  in  the  head.  On  being  taken  to  the  farm  and 
given  brandy.  Dynes  was  asked  if  he  had  recognised  anybody.  He 
had  said  there  were  five  of  them,  "  town  chaps  "  ;  and  then  he  had 
named  Hurd  quite  plainly  —  whether  anybody  else,  nobody  knew. 
It  was  said  he  would  die,  and  that  Mr.  Raeburn  had  gone  to  take 
his  deposition. 

"An'  them  town  chaps  got  off,  eh?"  said  the  elderly  man. 

"  Clean !  "  said  Patton,  refilling  his  pipe.     "  Trust  them  !  " 

Meanwhile,  inside  this  poor  cottage  IVIarcella  was  putting  out 
all  the  powers  of  the  soul.  As  the  door  closed  behind  her  and 
the  inspector,  she  saw  Hurd  sitting  handcuffed  in  the  middle  of 
the  kitchen,  watched  by  a  man  whom  Jenkins,  the  local  policeman, 
had  got  in  to  help  him,  till  some  more  police  should  arrive.  Jen- 
kins was  now  upstairs  searching  the  bedroom.  The  little  bronchi- 
tic  boy  sat  on  the  fender,  in  front  of  the  untidy  fireless  grate, 
shivering,  his  emaciated  face  like  a  yellowish  white  mask,  his  eyes 
fixed  immovably  on  his  father.  Every  now  and  then  he  was  shaken 
with  coughing,  but  still  he  looked  —  with  the  dumb  devoted  atten- 
tion of  some  watching  animal. 

Hurd,  too,  was  sitting  silent.  His  eyes,  which  seemed  wider 
open  and  more  brilliant  than  usual,  wandered  restlessly  from  thing 
to  thing  about  the  room ;  his  great  earth-stained  hands  in  their 
fetters  twitched  every  now  and  then  on  his  knee.  Haggard  and 
dirty  as  he  was,  there  was  a  certain  aloofness,  a  dignity  even,  about 
the  misshapen  figure  which  struck  Marcella  strangely.  Both  crim- 
inal and  victim  may  have  it  —  this  dignity.  It  means  that  a  man 
feels  himself  set  apart  from  his  kind. 

Hurd  started  at  sight  of  ]Marcella.  "  I  want  to  speak  to  her," 
he  said  hoarsely,  as  the  inspector  approached  him  —  "  to  that  lady  " 
—  nodding  towards  her. 

"  Very  well,"  said  the  inspector ;  "  only  it  is  my  duty  to  warn 
you  that  anything  you  say  now  will  be  taken  down  and  used  as 
evidence  at  the  inquest." 

Marcella  came  near.  As  she  stood  in  front  of  him,  one  trem- 
bling ungloved  hand  crossed  over  the  other,  the  diamond  in  her 
engagement  ring  catching  the  light  from  the  window  sparkled 
brightly,  diverting  even  for  the  moment  the  eyes  of  the  little  fel- 
low against  whom  her  skirts  were  brushing. 
Q 


226  MAKCELLA  book  ii 

"  Ee  might  ha'  killed  me  just  as  well  as  I  killed  'im,"  said  Huvd, 
bending  over  to  her  and  speaking  with  difficulty  from  the  dryness 
of  his  mouth.  "  I  didn't  mean  nothink  o'  what  happened.  He 
and  Charlie  came  on  us  round  Disley  Wood.  He  didn't  take  no 
notice  o'  them.  It  was  they  as  beat  Charlie.  But  he  came  straight 
on  at  me  —  all  in  a  fury  —  a  blackguardin'  ov  me,  with  his  stick 
up.  I  thought  he  was  for  beatin'  my  brains  out,  an'  I  up  with 
my  gun  and  fired.  He  was  so  close  —  that  was  how  he  got  it  all 
in  the  head.     But  ee  might  'a'  killed  me  just  as  well." 

He  paused,  staring  at  her  with  a  certain  anguished  intensity, 
as  though  he  were  watching  to  see  how  she  took  it  —  nay,  trying 
its  effect  both  on  her  and  himself.  He  did  not  look  afraid  or  cast 
down  —  nay,  there  was  a  curious  buoyancy  and  steadiness  about 
his  manner  for  the  moment  which  astonished  her.  She  could 
almost  have  fancied  that  he  was  more  alive,  more  of  a  man  than 
she  had  ever  seen  him  —  mind  and  body  better  fused,  toore  at 
command. 

"  Is  there  anything  more  you  wish  to  say  to  me  ? "  she  asked 
him,  after  waiting. 

Then  suddenly  his  manner  changed.  Their  eyes  met.  Hers, 
with  all  their  subtle  inheritance  of  various  expression,  their  realised 
character,  as  it  were,  searched  his,  tried  to  understand  them  —  those 
peasant  eyes,  so  piercing  to  her  strained  sense  in  their  animal 
urgency  and  shame.  Why  had  he  done  this  awful  thing?  — 
deceived  her  —  wrecked  his  wife?  —  that  was  what  her  look  asked. 
It  seemed  to  her  too  childish  —  too  stupid  to  be  believed. 

"  I  haven't  made  nobbut  a  poor  return  to  you,  miss,"  he  said  in 
a  shambling  way,  as  though  the  words  were  dragged  out  of  him. 
Then  he  threw  up  his  head  again.  "  But  I  didn't  mean  nothink 
o'  what  happened,"  he  repeated,  doggedly  going  off  again  into  a 
rapid  yet,  on  the  whole,  vivid  and  consecutive  account  of  Westall's 
attack,  to  which  Marcella  listened,  ti\ying  to  remember  every  woi'd. 

"  Keep  that  for  your  solicitor,"  the  inspector  said  at  last,  inter- 
rupting him;  "you  are  only  giving  pain  to  Miss  Boyce.  You  had 
better  let  her  go  to  your  wife." 

Hurd  looked  steadily  once  more  at  Marcella.  "  It  be  a  bad  end 
I'm  come  to,"  he  said,  after  a  moment.  "  But  I  thank  you  kindly 
all  the  same.  They'll  want  seein'  after."  He  jerked  his  head 
towards  the  boy,  then  towards  the  outhouse  or  scullery  where  his 
wife  was.  "  She  takes  it  terr'ble  hard.  She  wanted  me  to  run. 
But  I  said,  '  No,  I'll  stan'  it  out.'  Mr.  Brown  at  the  Court'll  give 
you  the  bit  wages  he  owes  me.  But  they'll  have  to  go  on  the 
Union.     Everybody  '11  turn  their  backs  on  them  now." 

"I  will  look  after  them,"  said  Marcella,  "and  I  will  do  the  best 
I  can  for  you.     Now  I  will  go  to  Mrs.  Hurd." 


CHAP.  IX  MARCELLA  227 

Minta  Hurd  was  sitting  in  a  corner  of  the  outhouse  on  the  clay 
floor,  her  head  leaning  against  the  wall.  The  face  was  turned 
upward,  the  eyes  shut,  the  mouth  helplessly  open.  When  Marcella 
saw  her,  she  knew  that  the  unhappy  woman  had  already  wept  so 
much  in  the  hours  since  her  husband  came  back  to  her  that  she 
could  weep  no  more.  The  two  little  girls  in  the  scantiest  of  cloth- 
ing, half-fastened,  sat  on  the  floor  beside  her,  shivering  and  be- 
grimed —  watching  her.  They  had  been  crying  at  the  tops  of  their 
voices,  but  were  now  only  whimpering  miserably,  and  trying  at 
intervals  to  dry  their  tear-stained  cheeks  with  the  skirts  of  their 
frocks.  The  baby,  wrapped  in  an  old  shawl,  lay  on  its  mother's 
knee,  asleep  and  unheeded.  The  little  lean-to  place,  full  of  odds 
and  ends  of  rubbish,  and  darkened  overhead  by  a  string  of  damp 
clothes  —  was  intolerably  cold  in  the  damp  February  dawn.  The 
children  were  blue ;  the  mother  felt  like  ice  as  Marcella  stooped 
to  touch  her.     Outcast  misery  could  go  no  further. 

The  mother  moaned  as  she  felt  Marcella's  hand,  then  started 
wildly  forward,  straining  her  thin  neck  and  swollen  eyes  that  she 
might  see  through  the  two  open  doors  of  the  kitchen  and  the 
outhouse. 

"They're  not  taking  him  away?"  she  said  fiercely.  "Jenkins 
swore  to  me  they'd  give  me  notice." 

"  No,  he's  still  there,"  said  Marcella,  her  voice  shaking.  "  The 
inspector's  come.     You  shall  have  notice." 

Mrs.  Hurd  recognised  her  voice,  and  looked  up  at  her  in  amaze- 
ment. 

"  You  must  put  this  on,"  said  Marcella,  taking  off  the  short  fur 
cape  she  wore.  "You  are  perished.  Give  me  the  baby,  and  wrap 
yourself  in  it." 

But  Mrs.  Hurd  put  it  away  from  her  with  a  vehement  hand. 

"I'm  not  cold,  miss  —  I'm  burning  hot.  He  made  me  come  in 
here.  He  said  he'd  do  better  if  the  children  and  I  ud  go  away 
a  bit.  An' I  couldn't  go  upstairs,  because — because  —  "she  hid 
her  face  on  her  knees. 

Marcella  had  a  sudden  sick  vision  of  the  horrors  this  poor  creat- 
ure must  have  gone  through  since  her  husband  'had  appeared 
to  hei",  splashed  with  the  blood  of  his  enemy,  under  that  same 
marvellous  moon  which  — 

Her  mind  repelled  its  own  memories  with  haste.  Moreover,  she 
was  aware  of  the  inspector  standing  at  the  kitchen  door  and  beck- 
oning to  her.  She  stole  across  to  him  so  softly  that  Mrs.  Hurd  did 
not  hear  her. 

"  We  have  found  all  we  want,"  he  said  in  his  official  tone,  but 
under  his  breath —  "the  clothes  anyway.  We  must  now  look  for 
the  gun.     Jeukius  is  first  going  to  take  him  oft:  to  Widrington. 


228  MARCELLA  book  ii 

The  inquest  will  be  held  to-morrow  here,  at  '  The  Green  Man.' 
We  shall  bring  him  over."  Then  he  added  in  another  voice,  touch- 
ing his  hat,  "I  don't  like  leaving  you,  miss,  in  this  place.  Shall 
Jenkins  go  and  fetch  somebody  to  look  after  that  jpoor  thing? 
They'll  be  all  swarming  in  here  as  soon  as  we've  gone." 

"  No,  I'll  stay  for  a  while.  I'll  look  after  her.  They  won't 
come  in  if  I'm  here.  Except  his  sister  —  Mrs.  MuUins  —  she  may 
come  in,  of  course,  if  she  wants." 

The  inspector  hesitated. 

"  I'm  going  now  to  meet  'Mr.  Raebnrn,  miss.  I'll  tell  him  that 
you're  here." 

"  He  knows,"  said  Marcella,  briefly.     "  Now  are  you  ready?  " 

He  signed  assent,  and  Marcella  went  back  to  the  wife. 

"  Mrs.  Hurd,"  she  said,  kneeling  on  the  ground  beside  her, 
"they're  going." 

The  wife  sprang  up  with  a  cry  and  ran  into  the  kitchen,  where 
Hurd  was  already  on  his  feet  between  Jenkins  and  another  police- 
man, who  were  to  convey  him  to  the  gaol  at  Widrington.  But 
when  she  came  face  to  face  with  her  husband  something  —  perhaps 
the  nei'vous  appeal  in  his  strained  eyes  — checked  her,  and  she 
controlled  herself  piteously.  She  did  not  even  attempt  to  kiss  him. 
With  her  eyes  on  the  ground,  she  put  her  hand  on  his  arm. 
"They'll  let  me  come  and  see  you,  Jim?"  she  said,  trembling. 

"  Yes ;  you  can  find  out  the  rules,"  he  said  shortly.  "  Don't  let 
them  children  cry.  They  want  their  breakfast  to  warm  them. 
There's  plenty  of  coal.  I  brought  a  sack  home  from  Jellaby's  last 
night  myself.     Good-bye." 

"  Now,  march,"  said  the  inspector,  sternly,  pushing  the  wife 
back. 

Marcella  put  her  arm  round  the  shaking  woman.  The  door 
opened ;  and  beyond  the  three  figures  as  they  passed  out,  her  eye 
passed  to  the  waiting  crowd,  then  to  the  misty  expanse  of  common 
and  the  dark  woods  behind,  still  wrapped  in  fog. 

When  Mrs.  Hurd  saw  the  rows  of  people  waiting  within  a  stone's 
throw  of  the  door  she  shrank  back.  Perhaps  it  struck  her,  as  it 
struck  Marcella,  that  every  face  was  the  face  of  a  foe.  Marcella 
ran  to  the  door  as  the  inspector  stepped  out,  and  locked  it  after 
him.  Mrs.  Hurd,  hiding  herself  behind  a  bit  of  baize  curtain, 
watched  the  two  policemen  mount  with  Hurd  into  the  fly  that  was 
waiting,  and  then  followed  it  with  her  eyes  along  the  bit  of  straight 
road,  uttering  sounds  the  while  of  low  anguish,  which  wrung  the 
heart  in  Marcella's  breast.  Looking  back  in  after  days  it  always 
seemed  to  her' that  for  this  poor  soul  the  true  parting,  the  true 
wrench  between  life  and  life,  came  at  this  moment. 

She  went  up  to  her,  her  own  tears  running  over. 


CHAP.  IX  MARCELLA  229 

"You  must  come  and  lie  down,"  she  said,  recovering  herself  as 
quickly  as  possible.  "  You  and  the  children  are  both  starved,  and 
you  will  want  your  strength  if  you  are  to  help  him.  I  will  see  to 
things." 

She  put  the  helpless  woman  on  the  wooden  settle  by  the  fireplace, 
rolling  up  her  cloak  to  make  a  pillow. 

"  Now,  Willie,  you  sit  by  your  moJ;her.  Daisy,  where's  the 
cradle  ?  Put  the  baby  down  and  come  and  help  me  make  the 
fire." 

The  dazed  children  did  exactly  as  they  were  told,  and  the  mother 
lay  like  a  log  on  the  settle.  Marcella  found  coal  and  wood  under 
Daisy's  guidance,  and  soon  lit  the  fire,  piling  on  the  fuel  with  a 
lavish  hand.  Daisy  brought  her  water,  and  she  filled  the  kettle 
and  set  it  on  to  boil,  while  the  little  girl,  still  sobbing  at  intervals 
like  some  little  weeping  automaton,  laid  the  breakfast.  Then  the 
children  all  crouched  round  tlie  warmth,  while  Marcella  rubbed 
their  cold  hands  and  feet,  and  "  mothered  "  them.  Shaken  as  she 
w^as  with  emotion  and  horror,  she  Avas  yet  full  of  a  passionate  joy 
that  this  pity,  this  tendance  was  allow^ed  to  her.  The  crushing 
weight  of  self-contempt  had  lifted.  She  felt  morally  free  and  at 
ease. 

Already  she  was  revolving  what  she  could  do  for  Ilurd.  It 
was  as  clear  as  daylight  to  her  that  there  had  been  no  murder  but 
a  free  fight  —  an  even  chance  between  him  and  Westall.  Tlie 
violence  of  a  hard  and  tyrannous  man  had  provoked  his  own 
destruction  —  so  it  stood,  for  her  passionate  protesting  sense.  That 
at  any  rate  must  be  the  defence,  and  some  able  man  must  be  found 
to  press  it.  She  thought  she  would  write  to  the  Cravens  and  consult 
them.  Her  thoughts  carefully  avoided  the  names  both  of  Aldous 
Raeburn  and  of  Wharton. 

She  was  about  to  make  the  tea  when  some  one  knocked  at  the 
door.  It  proved  to  be  Kurd's  sister,  a  helpless  woman,  with  a  face 
swollen  by  crying,  who  seemed  to  be  afraid  to  come  into  the  cottage, 
and  afraid  to  go  near  her  sister-in-law.  Marcella  gave  her  money, 
and  sent  her  for  some  eggs  to  the  neighbouring  shop,  then  told  her 
to  come  back  in  half  an  hour  and  take  charge.  She  was  an  inca- 
pable, but  there  was  nothing  better  to  be  done.  "  Where  is  Miss 
Harden  ?  "  she  asked  the  woman.  The  answ^er  was  that  ever  since 
the  news  came  to  the  village  the  rector  and  his  sister  had  been  with 
Mrs.  Westall  and  Charlie  Dynes's  mother.  JMrs.  Westall  had  gone 
into  fit  after  fit;  it  had  taken  two  to  hold  her,  and  Charlie's 
mother,  who  was  in  bed  recovering  from  pneumonia,  had  also  been 
very  bad. 

Again  INIarcella's  heart  contracted  with  rage  rather  than  pity. 
Such  wrack  and  waste  of  human  life,  moral  and  physical !   for 


230  MAKCELLA  book  n 

what?  For  the  protection  of  a  hateful  sport  which  demoralised 
the  rich  and  their  agents,  no  less  than  it  tempted  and  provoked  the 
poor ! 

AVhen  she  had  fed  and  physically  comforted  the  children,  she 
went  and  knelt  down  beside  JNIrs.  Hurd,  who  still  lay  with  closed 
eyes  in  heavy-breathing  stupor. 

"Dear  Mrs.  Hurd,"  she  said,  "I  want  you  to  drink  this  tea 
and  eat  something." 

The  half-stupefied  woman  signed  refusal.     But  INIarcella  insisted. 

"  You  have  got  to  fight  for  your  husband's  life,"  she  said  firmly, 
"  and  to  look  after  your  children.  I  must  go  in  a  very  short  time, 
and  before  I  go  you  must  tell  me  all  that  you  can  of  this  business. 
Hurd  would  tell  you  to  do  it.  He  knows  and  you  know  that  I  am 
to  be  trusted.  I  want  to  save  him.  I  shall  get  a  good  lawyer  to 
help  him.  But  first  you  must  take  this  —  and  then  you  must  talk 
to  me." 

The  habit  of  obedience  to  a  "  lady,"  established  long  ago  in  years 
of  domestic  service,  held.  The  miserable  wife  submitted  to  be  fed, 
looked  with  forlorn  wonder  at  the  children  round  the  fire,  and  then 
sank  back  with  a  groan.  In  her  tension  of  feeling  Marcella  for 
an  impatient  moment  thought  her  a  poor  creature.  Then  with 
quick  remorse  she  put  her  arms  tenderly  round  her,  raised  the  di- 
shevelled grey-streaked  head  on  her  shoulder,  and  stooping,  kissed 
the  marred  face,  her  own  lips  quivering. 

"  You  are  not  alone,"  said  the  girl  with  her  whole  soul.  "  You 
shall  never  be  alone  while  1  live.     Now  tell  me." 

She  made  the  white  and  gasping  woman  sit  up  in  a  corner  of  the 
settle,  and  she  herself  got  a  stool  and  established  herself  a  little 
way  off,  frowning,  self-contained,  and  determined  to  make  out  the 
truth. 

''  Shall  I  send  the  children  upstairs  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  No !  "  said  the  boy,  suddenly,  in  his  husky  voice,  shaking  his 
head  with  energy,  "  I'm  not  a-going." 

"  Oh  !  he's  safe  —  is  Willie,"  said  Mrs.  Hurd,  looking  at  him,  but 
strangely,  and  as  it  were  from  a  long  distance,  "  and  the  others  is 
too  little." 

Then  gradually  Marcella  got  the  story  out  of  her  —  first,  the 
misery  of  alarm  and  anxiety  in  which  she  had  lived  ever  since  the 
Tudley  End  raid,  owing  first  to  her  knowledge  of  Hurd's  connec- 
tion with  it,  and  with  the  gang  that  had  carried  it  out;  then  to 
her  appreciation  of  the  quick  and  ghastly  growth  of  the  hatred  be- 
tween him  and  "Westall;  lastly,  to  her  sense  of  ingratitude  towards 
those  who  had  been  kind  to  them. 

"  I  knew  we  was  acting  bad  towards  you.  I  told  Jim  so.  I 
couldn't  hardly  bear  to  see  you  come  in.     But  there,  miss,  —  I 


CHAP.  IX  MARCELLA  231 

couldn't  do  anything.  I  tried,  oh !  the  Lord  knows  I  tried  1 
There  was  never  no  happiness  between  us  at  last,  I  talked  so.  But 
I  don't  believe  he  could  help  himself  —  he's  not  made  like  other 
folks,  isn't  Jim  — " 

Her  features  became  convulsed  again  with  the  struggle  for  speech. 
Marcella  reached  out  for  the  toil-disfigured  hand  that  was  fingering 
and  clutching  at  the  edge  of  the  settle,  and  held  it  close.  Gradu- 
ally she  made  out  that  although  Hurd  had  not  been  able  of  course 
to  conceal  his  night  absences  from  his  wife,  he  had  kept  his  connec- 
tion -with  the  Oxford  gang  absolutely  dark  fi'om  her,  till,  in  his 
wild  exultation  over  Westall's  discomfiture  in  the  Tudley  End 
raid,  he  had  said  things  in  his  restless  snatches  of  sleep  which  had 
enabled  her  to  get  the  whole  truth  out  of  him  by  degrees.  Her 
reproaches,  her  fears,  had  merely  angered  and  estranged  him  ;  her 
nature  had  had  somehow  to  accommodate  itself  to  his,  lest  affec- 
tion should  lose  its  miserable  all. 

As  to  this  last  fatal  attack  on  the  Maxwell  coverts,  it  was  clear 
to  Marcella,  as  she  questioned  and  listened,  that  the  wife  had  long 
foreseen  it,  and  that  she  now  knew  much  more  about  it  than  — 
suddenly  —  she  would  allow  herself  to  say.  For  in  the  midst  of 
her  outpourings  she  drew  herself  together,  tried  to  collect  and  calm 
herself,  looked  at  Marcella  with  an  agonised,  suspicious  eye,  and 
fell  silent. 

"I  don't  know  nothing  about  it,  miss,"  she  stubbornly  declared 
at  last,  with  an  inconsequent  absurdity  which  smote  Marcella's 
pity  afresh.  ''  How  am  I  to  know  ?  There  was  seven  o'  them 
Oxford  fellows  at  Tudley  End  —  that  I  know.  Who's  to  say  as 
Jim  was  with  'em  at  all  last  night?  Who's  to  say  as  it  wasn't 
them  as  —  " 

She  stopped,  shivering.     Marcella  held  her  reluctant  hand. 

"  You  don't  know,"  she  said  quietly,  "  that  I  saw  your  husband 
in  here  for  a  minute  before  I  came  in  to  you,  and  that  he  told  me, 
as  he  had  already  told  Jenkins,  that  it  was  in  a  struggle  with  him 
that  Westall  was  shot,  but  that  he  had  fired  in  self-defence  because 
Westall  was  attacking  him.  You  don't  know,  too,  that  Charlie 
Dynes  is  alive,  and  says  he  saw  Hurd  —  " 

"Charlie  Dynes!"  Mrs.  Hurd  gave  a  shriek,  and  then  fell 
to  weeping  and  trembling  again,  so  that  Marcella  had  need  of 
patience. 

"If  you  can't  help  me  more,"  she  said  at  last  in  despair,  "I 
don't  know  what  we  shall  do.  Listen  to  me.  Your  husband  will 
be  charged  with  Westall's  murder.  That  I  am  sure  of.  He  says 
it  was  not  murder  —  that  it  happened  in  a  fight.  I  believe  it.  I 
want  to  get  a  lawyer  to  prove  it.  I  am  your  friend  —  you  know 
I  am.     But  if  you  are  not  going  to  help  me  by  telling  me  what 


232  MARCELLA  book  ii 

yoii  know  of  last  night  I  may  as  well  go  home  —  and  get  your 
sister-in-law  to  look  after  you  and  the  children." 

She  rose  as  she  spoke.     Mrs.  Hurd  clutched  at  her. 

"Oh,  my  God !"  she  said,  looking  straight  before  her  vacantly 
at  the  children,  who  at  once  began  to  cry  again.  "  Oh,  my  God ! 
Look  here,  miss"  —  her  voice  dropped,  her  swollen  eyes  fixed 
themselves  on  Marcella  —  the  words  came  out  in  a  low,  hm-ried 
stream — "It  was  just  after  four  o'clock  I  heard  that  door  turn; 
I  got  up  in  my  nightgown  and  ran  down,  and  there  was  Jim. 
'  Put  that  light  out,'  he  says  to  me,  sharp  like.  '  Oh,  Jim,'  says  T, 
'wherever  have  you  been?  You'll  be  the  death  o'  me  and  them 
poor  children!'  'You  go  to  bed,'  says  he  to  me,  'and  I'll  come 
presently.'  But  I  could  see  him,  'cos  of  the  moon,  almost  as  plain 
as  day,  an'  I  couldn't  take  my  eyes  off  him.  And  he  went  about 
the  kitchen  so  strange  like,  puttin'  down  his  hat  and  takin'  it  up 
again,  an'  I  saw  he  hadn't  got  his  gun.  So  I  went  up  and  caught 
holt  on  him.  An'  he  gave  me  a  push  back.  '  Can't  you  let  me 
alone?' he  says;  'you'll  know  soon  enough.'  An' then  I  looked 
at  my  sleeve  where  I'd  touched  him  —  oh,  my  God !  my  God!  " 

Marcella,  white  to  the  lips  and  shuddering  too,  held  her  tight. 
She  had  the  seeing  faculty  which  goes  with  such  quick,  nervous 
natiu'es,  and  she  saw  the  scene  as  though  she  had  been  there  — 
the  moonlit  cottage,  the  miserable  husband  and  wife,  the  life- 
blood  on  the  woman's  sleeve. 

Mrs.  Hurd  went  on  in  a  torrent  of  half-finished  sentences  and 
fragments  of  remembered  talk.  She  told  her  husband's  story  of 
the  encounter  with  the  keepers  as  he  had  told  it  to  her,  of  course 
with  additions  and  modifications  already  struck  out  by  the  agony 
of  inventive  pain ;  she  described  how  she  had  made  him  take  his 
blood-stained  clothes  and  hide  them  in  a  hole  in  the  roof;  then 
how  she  had  urged  him  to  strike  across  country  at  once  and  get  a 
few  hours  start  before  the  ghastly  business  was  known.  But  the 
more  he  talked  to  her  the  more  confident  he  became  of  his  own 
story,  and  the  more  determined  to  stay  and  brave  it  out.  Besides, 
he  was  shrewd  enough  to  see  that  escape  for  a  man  of  his  deform- 
ity was  impossible,  and  he  tried  to  make  her  understand  it  so.  But 
she  was  mad  and  blind  with  fear,  and  at  last,  just  as  the  light 
was  coming  in,  he  told  her  roughly,  to  end  their  long  wrestle, 
that  he  should  go  to  bed  and  get  some  sleep.  She  would  make  a 
fool  of  him,  and  he  should  want  all  his  wits.  She  followed  him  up 
the  steep  ladder  to  their  room,  weeping.  And  there  was  little 
Willie  sitting  up  in  bed,  choking  with  the  phlegm  in  his  throat, 
and  half  dead  of  fright  because  of  the  voices  below. 

"  And  when  Hurd  see  him,  he  went  and  cuddled  him  up,  and 
rubbed  his  legs  and   feet  to  warm  them,  an'  I  could  hear  him 


CHAP.  IX  MARCELLA  233 

groaniu'.  And  I  says  to  him,  'Jim,  if  you  won't  go  for  my  sake, 
will  you  go  for  the  boy's  ?  '  For  you  see,  miss,  there  was  a  bit  of 
money  in  the  house,  an'  I  thought  he'd  hide  himself  by  day  and 
walk  by  liight,  and  so  get  to  Liverpool  perhaps,  and  off  to  the 
States.  An'  it  seemed  as  though  my  head  would  burst  with  listen- 
ing for  people  comin',  and  him  taken  up  there  like  a  rat  in  a  trap, 
an'  no  way  of  provin'  the  truth,  and  everybody  agen  him,  because 
of  the  things  he'd  said.  And  he  burst  out  a-cryin',  an'  Willie  cried. 
An'  I  came  an'  entreated  of  him.  An'  he  kissed  me;  an'  at  last 
he  said  he'd  go.  An'  I  made  haste,  tlie  light  was  getting  so  terri- 
ble strong ;  an'  just  as  he'd  got  to  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  an'  I  was 
holding  little  Willie  in  my  arms  an'  saying  good-bye  to  him —  " 

She  let  her  head  sink  against  the  settle.  There  was  no  more  to 
say,  and  JNIarcella  asked  no  more  questions  —  she  sat  thinking. 
W^illie  stood,  a  wasted,  worn  figure,  by  his  mother,  stroking  her 
face ;  his  hoarse  breathing  was  for  ths  time  the  only  sound  in  the 
cottage. 

Then  Marcel] a  heard  a  loud  knock  at  the  door.  She  got  up  and 
looked  through  the  casement  window.  The  crowd  had  mostly 
dispersed,  but  a  few  people  stood  about  on  the  green,  and  a  police- 
man was  stationed  outside  the  cottage.  On  the  steps  stood  Aldous 
Raeburn,  his  horse  held  behind  him  by  a  boy. 

She  went  and  opened  the  door. 

"  I  will  come,"  she  said  at  once.  "  There  —  I  see  Mrs.  MuUins 
crossing  the  common.     Now  I  can  leave  lier." 

Aldous,  taking  off  his  hat,  closed  the  door  behind  him,  and 
stood  with  his  hand  on  Marcella's  arm,  looking  at  the  huddled 
woman  on  the  settle,  at  the  pale  children.  There  was  a  solemnity 
in  his  expression,  a  mixture  of  judgment  and  pity  which  showed 
that  the  emotion  of  other  scenes  also  —  scenes  through  which  he 
had  just  passed  —  was  entering  into  it. 

"Poor  unhappy  souls,"  he  said  slowly,  under  his  breath.  "You 
say  that  you  have  got  some  one  to  see  after  her.  She  looks  as 
though  it  might  kill  her,  too." 

Marcella  nodded.  Now  that  her  task,  for  the  moment,  was 
nearly  over,  she  could  hardly  restrain  herself  nervously  or  keep 
herself  from  crying.  Aldous  observed  her  with  disquiet  as  she 
put  on  her  hat.  His  heart  was  deeply  stirred.  She  had  chosen 
more  nobly  for  herself  than  he  would  have  chosen  for  her,  in  thus 
daring  an  awful  experience  for  the  sake  of  mercy.  His  moral 
sense,  exalted  and  awed  by  the  sight  of  death,  approved,  wor- 
shipped her.  His  man's  impatience  pined  to  get  her  away,  to 
cherish  and  comfoi-t  her.  Why,  she  could  hardly  have  slept  thi-ee 
hours  since  they  parted  on  the  steps  of  the  Court,  amidst  the  crowd 
of  carriages  ! 


234  MARCELLA  book  ii 

Mrs.  Mullins  came  in  still  scared  and  weeping,  and  di'opping 
frightened  curtseys  to  "Muster  llaeburn."  Marcella  spoke  to  her 
a  little  in  a  whisper,  gave  some  counsels  which  filled  Aldoiis  with 
admiration  for  the  girl's  practical  sense  and  thoughtfulness,  and 
promised  to  come  again  later.  Mrs.  Hurd  neither  moved  nor 
opened  her  eyes. 

"  Can  you  walk?  "  said  Aldous,  bending  over  her,  as  they  stood 
outside  the  cottage.  "  I  can  see  that  you  are  worn  out.  Could 
you  sit  my  horse  if  I  led  him?" 

"  No,  let  us  walk." 

They  went  on  together,  followed  by  the  eyes  of  the  village,  the 
boy  leading  the  horse  some  distance  behind. 

"  Where  have  you  been  ?  "  said  Marcella,  when  they  had  passed 
the  vUlage.  "  Oh,  please  don't  think  of  my  being  tired !  I  had  so 
much  rather  know  it  all.     I  must  know  it  all." 

She  was  deathly  pale,  but  her  black  eyes  flashed  impatience  and 
excitement.  She  even  drew  her  hand  out  of  the  arm  where 
Aldous  was  tenderly  holding  it,  and  walked  on  erect  by  her- 
self. 

"I  have  been  with  poor  Dynes,"  said  Aldous,  sadly;  "we  had  to 
take  his  deposition.     He  died  while  I  was  thei'e." 

"He  died?" 

"  Yes.  The  fiends  who  killed  him  had  left  small  doubt  of  that. 
But  he  lived  long  enough,  thank  God,  to  give  the  information 
which  will,  I  think,  bring  them  to  justice !  " 

The  tone  of  the  magistrate  and  the  magnate  goaded  Marcella's 
quivering  nerves. 

"What  is  justice?"  she  cried;  "the  system  that  wastes  human 
lives  in  protecting  your  tame  pheasants  ?  " 

A  cloud  came  over  the  stern  clearness  of  his  look.  He  gave  a 
bitter  sigh  —  the  sigh  of  the  man  to  whom  his  own  position  in  life 
had  been,  as  it  were,"  one  long  scruple. 

"  You  may  well  ask  that !  "  he  said.  "  You  cannot  imagine  that 
I  ^lid  not  ask  it  of  myseK  a  hundred  times  as  I  stood  by  that  poor 
fellow's  bedside." 

They  walked  on  in  silence.  She  was  hardly  appeased.  There 
was  a  deep,  inner  excitement  in  her  urging  her  towards  difference, 
towards  attack .     At  last  he  resumed  : 

"  But  whatever  the  merits  of  our  present  game  system  may  be, 
the  present  case  is  surely  clear  —  horribly  clear.  Six  men,  with  at 
least  three  guns  among  them,  probably  more,  go  out  on  a  pheasant- 
stealing  expedition.  They  come  across  two  keepers,  one  a  lad  of 
seventeen,  who  have  nothing  but  a  light  stick  apiece.  The  boy  is 
beaten  to  death,  the  keeper  shot  dead  at  the  first  brush  by  a  man 
who  has  been  his  life-long  enemy,  and  threatened  several  times  in 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  235 

public  to  'do  for  him."  If  that  is  not  brutal  and  deliberate 
murder,  it  is  difficult  to  say  what  is !  " 

Marcella  stood  still  in  the  misty  road  trying  to  command 
herself. 

"  It  was  not  deliberate,"  she  said  at  last  with  difficulty  ;  "  not  in 
Hurd's  fiase.  I  have  heard  it  all  from  his  own  mouth.  It  was  a 
struggle —  he  might  have  been  killed  instead  of  Westall  —  AV'estall 
attacked,  Hurd  defended  himself." 

Aldous  shook  his  head. 

"  Of  course  Hurd  would  tell  you  so,"  he  said  sadly,  "  and  his 
poor  wife.  He  is  not  a  bad  or  vicious  fellow,  like  the  rest  of  the 
rascally  pack.  Probably  when  he  came  to  himself,  after  the 
moment  of  rage,  he  could  not  simply  believe  what  he  had  done. 
But  that  makes  no  difference.  It  was  murder;  no  judge  or  juiy 
could  possibly  take  any  other  view.  Dynes's  evidence  is  clear,  and 
the  proof  of  motive  is  overwhelming." 

Then,  as  he  saw  her  pallor  and  trembling,  he  broke  off  in  deep  dis- 
tress.    "  My  dear  one,  if  I  could  but  have  kept  you  out  of  this  !  " 

They  were  alone  in  the  misty  road.  The  boy  with  the  horse  was 
out  of  sight.  He  would  fain  have  put  his  arm  round  her,  have 
consoled  and  supported  her.     But  she  would  not  let  him. 

"  Please  understand,"  she  said  in  a  sort  of  gasp,  as  she  drew  her- 
self away,  "that  I  do  7io<  believe  Hurd  is  guilty  —  that  I  shall  do 
my  very  utmost  to  defend  him.  He  is  to  me  the  victim  of  unjust, 
abominable  laws.  If  you  will  not  help  me  to  pi'otect  him  —  then  I 
must  look  to  some  one  else." 

Aldous  felt  a  sudden  stab  of  suspicion  —  presentiment. 

"  Of  course  he  will  be  well  defended ;  he  will  have  every 
chance;   that  you  may  be  sure  of,"  he  said  slowly. 

Marcella  controlled  herself,  and  they  walked  on.  As  they  en- 
tered the  drive  of  Alellor,  Aldous  thought  passionately  of  those 
divine  moments  in  his  sitting-room,  hardly  yet  nine  hours  old. 
And  now  —  now!  —  she  walked  beside  him  as  an  enemy. 

The  sound  of  a  step  on  the  gravel  in  front  of  them  made  them 
look  up.  Past,  present,  and  future  met  in  the  girl's  bewildered  and 
stormy  sense  as  she  recognised  Wharton. 


CHAPTER  X 

The  first  sitting  of  the  Birmingham  Labour  Congress  was  just 
over,  and  the  streets  about  the  hall  in  which  it  had  been  held  were 
beginning  to  fill  with  the  issuing  delegates.-  Rain  was  pom'ing 
down  and  umbrellas  were  plentiful. 

Harry  Wharton,  accompanied  by  a  group  of  men,  left  the  main 


236  MARCELLA  Booii  ii 

entrance  of  the  hall,  —  releasing  himself  with  difficulty  from  the 
friendly  crowd  about  the  doors  —  and  crossed  the  street  to  his  hotel. 

"  Well,  I'm  glad  you  think  I  did  decently,"  he  said,  as  they 
mounted  the  hotel  stairs.  "  What  a  beastly  day,  and  how  stuffy 
that  hall  was !     Come  in  and  have  something  to  drink." 

He  threw  open  the  door  of  his  sitting-room  as  he  spoke.  The 
four  men  with  him  followed  him  in. 

"  I  must  go  back  to  the  hall  to  see  two  or  three  men  before 
everybody  disperses,"  said  the  one  in  front.  "  No  refreshment  for 
me,  thank  you,  Mr.  Wharton.  But  I  want  to  ask  a  question  — 
what  arrangements  have  you  made  for  the  reporting  of  your 
speech  ?  " 

The  man  who  spoke  was  thin  and  dark,  with  a  modest  kindly 
eye.     He  wore  a  black  frock  coat,  and  had  the  air  of  a  minister. 

"  Oh,  thank  you,  Bennett,  it's  all  right.  The  Po.s^,  the  Chronicle, 
and  the  Northern  Guardian  will  have  full  copies.  I  sent  them  off 
before  the  meeting.  And  my  own  paper,  of  course.  As  to  the  rest 
they  may  report  it  as  they  like.     I  don't  care." 

"  They'll  all  have  it,"  said  another  man,  bluntly.  "  It's  the  best 
speech  you've  ever  made  —  the  best  president's  speech  we've  had 
yet,  I  say,  —  don't  you  think  so  ?  " 

The  speaker,  a  man  called  Casey,  turned  to  the  two  men  behind 
him.     Both  nodded. 

"Hallin's  speech  last  year  was  first-rate,"  he  continued,  "but 
somehow  Hallin  damps  you  down,  at  least  he  did  ine  last  year ; 
what  you  want  just  now  is  Jight  —  and,  my  word!  Mr.  Wharton 
let  'em  have  it !  " 

And  standing  with  his  hands  on  his  sides,  he  glanced  round 
from  one  to  another.  His  own  face  was  flushed,  partly  from  the 
effects  of  a  crowded  hall  and  bad  air,  but  mostly  with  excitement. 
AU  the  men  present  indeed  —  though  it  was  less  evident  in  Bennett 
and  Wharton  than  in  the  rest  —  had  the  bright  nervous  look  which 
belongs  to  leaders  keenly  conscious  of  standing  well  with  the  led, 
and  of  having  just  emerged  successfully  from  an  agitating  ordeal. 
As  they  stood  together  they  went  over  the  speech  to  which  they 
had  been  listening,  and  the  scene  which  had  followed  it,  in  a 
running  stream  of  talk,  laughter,  and  gossip.  Wharton  took  little 
part,  except  to  make  a  joke  occasionally  at  his  own  expense,  but 
the  pleasure  on  his  smiling  lip,  and  in  his  roving,  contented  eye  was 
not  to  be  mistaken.  The  speech  he  had  just  delivered  had  been 
first  thought  out  as  he  paced  the  moonlit  library  and  corridor  at 
Mellor.  After  Marcella  had  left  him,  and  he  was  once  more  in 
his  own  room,  he  had  had  the  extraordinary  self-control  to  write 
it  out,  and  make  two  or  three  machine-copies  of  it  for  the  press. 
Neither  its  range  nor  its  logical  order  had  suft'ei'ed  for  that  inter- 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  237 

veiling  experience.  The  programme  of  labour  for  the  next  five 
years  had  never  been  better  presented,  more  boldly  planned,  more 
eloquently  justified.  Hallin's  presidential  speech  of  the  year 
before,  as  Casey  said,  rang  flat  in  the  memory  when  compared 
with  it.  Wharton  knew  that  he  had  made  a  mark,  and  knew  also 
that  his  speech  had  given  him  the  whip-hand  of  some  fellows  who 
would  otherwise  have  stood  in  his  way. 

Casey  was  the  first  man  to  cease  talking  about  the  speech.  He 
had  already  betrayed  himself  about  it  more  than  he  meant.  He 
belonged  to  the  New  Unionism,  and  affected  a  costume  in  character 
—  fustian  trousers,  fiannel  shirt,  a  full  red  tie  and  workman's  coat, 
all  well  calculated  to  set  off  a  fine  lion-like  head  and  broad  shoul- 
ders. He  had  begun  life  as  a  bricklayer's  labourer,  and  was  now 
the  secretary  of  a  recently  formed  Union.  His  influence  had  been 
considerable,  but  was  said  to  be  already  on  the  wane ;  though  it 
was  thought  likely  that  he  would  win  a  seat  in  the  coming  Parlia- 
ment. 

The  other  two  men  were  MoUoy,  secretary  to  the  congress,  short, 
smooth-faced,  and  wiry,  a  man  whose  pleasant  eye  and  manner 
were  often  misleading,  since  he  was  in  truth  one  of  the  hottest 
fighting  men  of  a  fighting  movement;  and  Wilkins,  a  friend  of 
Casey's  —  ex-iron  worker.  Union  official,  and  Labour  candidate  for 
a  Yorkshire  division  —  an  uneducated,  passionate  fellow,  speaking 
with  a  broad,  Yorkshire  accent,  a  bad  man  of  affairs,  but  honest, 
and  endowed  with  the  influence  which  comes  of  sincerity,  together 
with  a  gift  for  speaking  and  superhuman  powers  of  physical  en- 
durance. 

"  Well,  I'm  glad  it's  over,"  said  Wharton,  throwing  himself  into 
a  chair  with  a  long  breath,  and  at  the  same  time  stretching  out 
his  hand  to  ring  the  bell.  "  Casey,  some  whisky  ?  No  V  Nor 
you,  Wilkins?  nor  Molloy?  As  for  you,  Bennett,  I  know  it's  no 
good  asking  you.  By  George !  our  grandfathers  would  have 
thought  us  a  poor  lot !  Well,  some  coffee  at  any  rate  you  must 
all  of  you  have  before  you  go  back.  Waiter !  coffee.  By  the  way, 
I  have  been  seeing  something  of  Hallin,  Bennett,  down  in  the 
country." 

He  took  out  his  cigarette  case  as  he  spoke,  and  offered  it  to  the 
others.  All  refused  except  Molloy.  Casey  took  his  half-smoked 
pipe  out  of  his  pocket  and  lit  up.  He  was  not  a  teetotaler  as 
the  others  were,  but  he  would  have  scoi'ned  to  drink  his  whisky 
and  water  at  the  expense  of  a  "  gentleman  "  like  Wharton,  or  to 
smoke  the  "gentleman's  "  cigarettes.  His  class-pride  was  irritably 
strong.  Molloy,  who  was  by  nature  anybody's  equal,  took  the 
cigarette  with  an  easy  good  manners,  which  made  Casey  look  at  him 
askance. 


238  MARCELLA  book  ii 

Mr.  Bennett  drew  his  chair  close  to  Wharton's.  The  mention  of 
Hallin  had  roused  a  look  of  anxiety  in  his  quick  dark  eyes. 

"  How  is  he,  Mr.  Wharton?  The  last  letter  I  had  from  him  he 
made  light  of  his  health.  But  you  know  he  only  just  avoided  a 
breakdown  in  that  strike  business.  We  only  pulled  him  through 
by  the  skin  of  his  teeth  —  Mr.  Raeburn  and  I." 

"  Oh,  he's  no  constitution ;  never  had,  I  suppose.  But  he  seemed 
much  as  usual.  He's  staying  with  Raeburn,  you  know,  and  I've 
been  staying  with  the  father  of  the  young  lady  whom  Raeburn's 
going  to  marry." 

"  Ah  !  I've  heard  of  that,"  said  Bennett,  Mdth  a  look  of  interest. 
"Well,  Mr.  Raeburn  isn't  on  our  side,  but  for  judgment  and  fair 
dealing  there  are  very  few  men  of  his  class  and  circumstances  I 
would  trust  as  I  would  him.      The  lady  should  be  happy." 

"Of  course,"  said  Wharton,  drily.  "  However,  neither  she  nor 
Raeburn  are  very  happy  just  at  this  moment.  A  horrible  affair 
happened  down  there  last  night.  One  of  Lord  Maxwell's  game- 
keepers and  a  '  helper,'  a  lad  of  seventeen,  were  killed  last  night 
in  a  fight  with  poachers.  I  only  just  heard  the  outlines  of  it 
before  I  came  away,  but  I  got  a  telegram  just  before  going  into 
congress,  asking  me  to  defend  the  man  charged  with  the  murder." 

A  quick  expression  of  repulsion  and  disgust  crossed  Bennett's 
face. 

"There  have  been  a  whole  crop  of  such  cases  lately,"  he  said. 
"  How  shall  we  ever  escape  from  the  curse  of  this  game  system?" 

"We  shan't  escape  it,"  said  Wharton,  quietly,  knocking  the  end 
oft'  his  cigarette,  "  not  in  your  lifetime  or  mine.  When  we  get 
more  Radicals  oti  the  bench  we  shall  lighten  the  sentences ;  but 
that  will  only  exasperate  the  sporting  class  into  finding  new  ways 
of  protecting  themselves.  Oh!  the  man  will  be  hung  —  that's 
quite  clear  to  me.  But  it  will  be  a  good  case  —  from  the  public 
point  of  view  —  will  work  up  well  —  " 

He  ran  his  hands  through  his  curls,  considering. 

"  Will  work  up  admiraldy,"  he  added  in  a  lower  tone  of  voice, 
as  though  to  himself,  his  eyes  keen  and  brilliant  as  ever,  in  spite 
of  the  marks  of  sleeplessness  and  fatigue  visible  in  the  rest  of  the 
face,  though  only  visible  there  since  he  had  allowed  himself  the 
repose  of  his  cigarette  and  arm-chair. 

"Are  yo'  com  in' to  dine  at  the  'Peterloo'  to-night,  Mr.  Whar- 
ton?" said  Wilkins,  as  AVharton  handed  him  a  cup  of  coffee; 
"  but  of  coorse  you  are  —  part  of  yower  duties,  I  suppose  ?  " 

While  Molloy  and  Casey  were  deep  in  animated  discussion  of 
the  great  meeting  of  the  afternoon  he  had  been  sitting  silent 
against  the  edge  of  the  table  —  a  shoi"t-bearded  sombre  figure, 
ready  at  any  moment  to  make  a  grievance,  to  suspect  a  slight. 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  239 

"I'm  afraid  I  can't,"  said  Wliarton,  bending  forward  and  speak- 
ing in  a  tone  of  concern  ;  "  that  was  jnst  what  I  was  going  to  ask 
you  all  —  if  you  would  make  my  excuses  to-night  ?  I  have  been 
explaining  to  Bennett.  I  have  an  important  piece  of  business  in 
the  country —  a  labourer  has  been  getting  into  trouble  for  shoot- 
ing a  keeper ;  they  have  asked  me  to  defend  him.  The  assizes 
come  on  in  little  more  than  a  fortnight,  worse  luck  I  so  that  the 
time  is  short  —  " 

And  he  went  on  to  explain  that,  by  taking  an  evening  train  loack 
to  Widrington,  he  could  get  the  following  (Saturday)  morning 
with  the  solicitor  in  charge  of  the  case,  and  be  back  in  Birming- 
ham, thanks  to  the  convenience  of  a  new  line  lately  opened,  in 
time  for  the  second  meeting  of  the  congress,  which  was  fixed  for 
the  early  afternoon. 

He  spoke  with  great  cordiality  and  persuasiveness.  Among  the 
men  who  surrounded  liim,  his  youth,  good  looks,  and  easy  breeding 
shone  out  conspicuous.  In  the  opinion  of  Wilkins,  indeed,  who 
followed  his  every  word  and  gesture,  he  was  far  too  well  dressed 
and  too  well  educated.  A  day  would  soon  come  when  the  labour 
movement  would  be  able  to  show  these  young  aristocrats  the  door. 
Not  yet,  however. 

"  Well,  I  thowt  you  wouldn't  dine  with  us,"  he  said,  turning 
away  with  a  blunt  laugh. 

Bennett's  mild  eyes  showed  annoyance.  "  Mr.  Wharton  has  ex- 
plained himself  very  fully,  I  think,"  he  said,  turning  to  the  others. 
"We  shall  miss  him  at  dinner  —  but  this  matter  seems  to  be  one 
of  life  and  death.  And  we  mustn't  forget  anyvs^ay  that  Mr.  AVhar- 
ton  is  fulfilling  this  engagement  at  great  inconvenience  to  himself. 
We  none  of  us  knew  when  we  elected  him  last  year  that  he  would 
have  to  be  fighting  his  election  at  the  same  time.  Next  Saturday, 
isn't  it?  " 

Bennett  rose  as  he  spoke  and  carefully  buttoned  his  coat.  It  was 
curious  to  contrast  his  position  among  his  fellows  —  one  of  marked 
ascendency  and  authority  —  with  his  small  insignificant  physique. 
He  had  a  gentle  deprecating  eye,  and  the  heart  of  a  poet.  He 
played  the  flute  and  possessed  the  gift  of  repeating  verse  —  es- 
pecially Ebenezer  Eliot's  Corn  Law  Rhymes  —  so  as  to  stir  a 
great  audience  to  enthusiasm  or  tears.  The  Wesleyan  community 
of  his  native  Cheshire  village  owned  no  more  successful  class- 
leader,  and  no  humbler  Christian.  At  the  same  time  he  could 
hold  a  large  business  meeting  sternly  in  check,  was  the  secretary 
of  one  of  the  largest  and  oldest  Unions  in  the  country,  had  been 
in  Parliament  for  years,  and  was  generally  looked  upon  even  by 
the  men  who  hated  his  "  moderate  "  policy,  as  a  power  not  to  be 
ignored. 


240  MARCELLA  book  ir 

"  Next  Saturday.  Yes  !  "  said  Wharton,  nodding  in  answer  to 
his  enquiry. 

"  Well,  are  you  going  to  do  it  ?  "  said  Casey,  looking  round  at  him. 

"  Oh,  yes !  "  said  Wharton,  cheerfully  ;  "  oil,  yes  !  we  shall  do  it. 
We  shall  settle  old  Dodgson,  I  tliink." 

"  Are  the  Raeburns  as  strong  as  they  were  ?  "  asked  Molloy,  who 
knew  Brookshire. 

"  AVhat  landlord  is  ?    Since  '84  the  ground  is  mined  for  them  all 

—  good  and  bad  —  and  they  know  it." 

"  The  mine  takes  a  long  time  blowing  up  —  too  long  for  my 
patience,"  said  Wilkins,  gruffly.  "How  the  country  can  go  on 
year  after  year  paying  its  tribute  to  these  plunderers  passes  my 
comprehension.  But  you  may  attack  them  as  you  please.  You 
will  never  get  any  forrarder  so  long  as  Parliament  and  the  Cabinet 
is  made  up  of  them  and  their  hangers  on." 

Wharton  looked  at  him  brightly,  but  silently,  making  a  little 
assenting  inclination  of  the  head.  He  was  not  surprised  that 
anything  should  pass  Wilkins's  comprehension,  and  he  was  de- 
termined to  give  him  no  opening  for  holding  forth. 

"  Well,  we'll  let  you  alone,"  said  Bennett.  "  You'll  have  very 
little  time  to  get  off  in.  We'll  make  your  excuses,  Mr.  Wharton. 
You  may  be  sure  everybody  is  so  pleased  with'  your  speech  we 
shall  find  them  all  in  a  good  temper.  It  was  grand !  —  let  me 
congratulate  you  again.  Good-night  —  I  hope  you'll  get  your 
poacher  off  !  " 

The  others  followed  suit,  and  they  all  took  leave  in  character ; 

—  Molloy,  with  an  eager  business  reference  to  the  order  of  the  day 
for  Saturday,  —  "  Give  me  your  address  at  Widrington  ;  I'll  post 
you  everything  to-night,  so  that  you  may  have  it  all  under  your 
eye."  —  Casey,  with  the  oft'-hand  patronage  of  the  man  v/ho  would 
not  for  the  world  have  his  benevolence  mistaKen  for  servility,  — 
and  Wilkins  with  as  gruff'  a  nod  and  as  limp  a  shake  of  the  hand 
as  possible.  It  might  perhaps  have  been  read  in  the  manner  of 
the  last  two,  that  although  this  young  man  had  just  made  a  most 
remarkable  impression,  and  was  clearly  destined  to  go  far,  they 
were  determined  not  to  yield  themselves  to  liim  a  moment  before 
they  must.  In  truth,  both  were  already  jealous  of  him ;  whereas 
Molloy,  absorbed  in  the  business  of  the  congress,  cared  for  nothing 
except  to  know  whether  in  the  next  two  days'  debates  Wharton 
would  show  himself  as  good  a  chairman  as  he  was  an  orator ;  and 
Bennett,  while  saying  no  word  that  he  did  not  mean,  was  fully 
conscious  of  an  inner  judgment,  which  pronounced  five  minutes 
of  Edward  Ilallin's  company  to  be  worth  more  to  him  than  any- 
thing which  this  brilliant  young  fellow  could  do  or  say. 

Wharton  saw  them  out,  then  came  back  and  threw  himself 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  241 

again  into  his  chair  by  the  window.  The  Venetian  blinds  were 
not  closed,  and  he  looked  out  on  a  wide  and  handsome  street  of 
tall  red-brick  houses  and  shops,  crowded  with  people  and  carriages, 
and  lit  with  a  lavishness  of  gas  which  overcame  even  the  February 
dark  and  damp.  But  he  noticed  nothing,  and  even  the  sensation 
of  his  triumph  was  passing  off.  He  was  once  more  in  the  Mellor 
drive ;  Aldous  Raeburn  and  Marcella  stood  in  front  of  him ;  the 
thrill  of  the  moment  beat  once  more  in  his  pulse. 

He  buried  his  head  in  his  hands  and  thought.  The  news  of  the 
murder  had  reached  him  from  Mr.  Boyce.  The  master  of  Mellor 
had  heard  the  news  from  William,  the  man-servant,  at  half-past 
seven,  and  had  instantly  knocked  up  his  guest,  by  way  of  sharing 
the  excitement  with  which  his  own  feeble  frame  was  throbbing. 

"  By  Gad !  I  never  heard  such  an  atrocious  business,"  said  the 
invalid,  his  thin  hand  shaking  against  his  dressing-gown.  "That's 
what  your  Radical  notions  bring  us  to !  We  shall  have  them 
plundering  and  burning  the  country  houses  next." 

"  I  don't  think  my  Radical  notions  have  much  do  with  it,"  said 
AVharton,  composedly. 

But  thei'e  was  a  red  spot  in  his  cheeks  which  belied  his  manner. 
So  when  he  —  they — saw  Hurd  cross  the  avenue  he  was  on  his  way 
to  this  deed  of  blood.  The  shot  that  he,  Wharton,  had  heard  had 
been  the  shot  which  slew  Westall?  Probably.  Well,  what  was 
the  bearing  of  it?  Could  she  keep  her  own  counsel  or  would  they 
find  themselves  in  the  witness  box?  The  idea  quickened  his  pulse 
amazingly. 

"  Any  clue  ?     Any  arrest  ?  "  he  asked  of  his  host. 

"  Why,  I  told  you,"  said  Boyce,  testily,  though  as  a  matter  of 
fact  he  had  said  nothing.  "  They  have  got  that  man  Hurd.  The 
ruffian  has  been  a  marked  man  by  the  keepers  and  police,  they  tell 
me,  for  the  last  year  or  more.  And  there's  my  daughter  has  been 
pampering  him  and  his  wife  all  the  time,  and  preaching  to  me 
about  them !  She  got  Raeburn  even  to  take  him  on  at  the  Court. 
I  trust  it  will  be  a  lesson  to  her." 

Wharton  drew  a  breath  of  relief.  So  the  man  was  in  custody, 
and  there  was  other  evidence.  Good  !  There  was  no  saying  what 
a  woman's  conscience  might  be  capable  of,  even  against  her  friends 
and  herself. 

When  Mr.  Boyce  at  last  left  him  free  to  dress  and  make  his 
preparations  for  the  early  train,  by  which  the  night  before,  after 
the  ladies'  departure  for  the  ball,  he  had  suddenly  made  up  his 
mind  to  leave  Mellor,  it  was  some  time  before  AVharton  could  rouse 
himself  to  action.  The  situation  absorbed  him.  ]\Iiss  Boyce's 
friend  was  now  in  imminent  danger  of  his  neck,  and  Miss  Boyce's 
thoughts  must  be  of  necessity  concentrated  upon  his  plight  and 

R 


242  MARCELLA  book  ii 

that  of  his  family.  He  foresaw  the  passion,  the  saeva  indignatio, 
that  she  must  ultimately  throw — the  general  situation  being  what 
it  was  —  into  the  struggle  for  Kurd's  life.  Whatever  the  evidence 
might  be,  he  would  be  to  her  either  victim  or  champion  —  and 
Westall,  of  course,  merely  the  Holofernes  of  the  piece. 

How  would  Raebui-n  take  it?  Ah,  well!  the  situation  must 
develop.  It  occurred  to  him,  however,  that  he  would  catch  an 
earlier  train  to  Widrington  than  the  one  he  had  fixed  on,  and  have 
half  an  hour's  talk  with  a  solicitor  who  was  a  good  friend  of  his 
before  going  on  to  Birmingham.  Accordingly,  he  rang  for  Wil- 
liam—  who  came,  all  staring  and  dishevelled,  fresh  from  the  agita- 
tion of  the  servants'  hall  —  gave  orders  for  his  luggage  to  be  sent 
after  him,  got  as  much  fresh  information  as  he  could  from  the 
excited  lad,  plunged  into  his  bath,  and  finally  emerged,  fresh  and 
vigorous  in  every  nerve,  showing  no  trace  whatever  of  the  fact  that 
two'hours  of  broken  sleep  had  been  his  sole  portion  for  a  night,  in 
which  he  had  gone  through  emotions  and  sustained  a  travail  of 
brain  either  of  which  would  have  left  their  mark  on  most  men. 

Then  the  meeting  in  the  drive  !     How  plainly  he  saw  them  both 

—  Raeburn  grave  and  pale,  Marcella  in  her  dark  serge  skirt  and 
cap,  with  an  eye  all  passion  and  a  cheek  white  as  her  hand. 

"  A  tragic  splendour  enwrapped  her !  —  a  fierce  heroic  air.  She 
was  the  embodiment  of  the  moment  —  of  the  melancholy  morning 
with  its  rain  and  leafless  woods  —  of  the  human  anguish  throbbing 
in  the  little  village.  And  I,  who  had  seen  her  last  in  her  festal 
dress,  who  had  held  her  warm  perfumed  youth  in  my  arms,  who 
had  watched  in  her  white  breast  the  heaving  of  the  heart  that  I 

—  /  had  troubled  !  — how  did  I  find  it  possible  to  stand  and  face 
her?  But  I  did.  It  rushed  through  me  at  once  how  I  would  make 
her  forgive  me  —  how  I  would  regain  possession  of  her.  I  had 
thought  the  play  was  closed :  it  was  suddenly  plain  to  me  that  the 
second  act  was  but  just  beginning.  She  and  Raeburn  had  already 
come  to  words  —  I  knew  it  directly  I  saw  them.  This  business 
will  divide  them  more  and  more.  His  conscience  will  come  in  — 
and  a  Raeburn's  conscience  is  the  devil ! 

"By  now  he  hates  me;  every  word  I  speak  to  him  —  still  more 
every  word  to  her  —  galls  him.  But  he  controlled  himseK  when 
I  made  him  tell  me  the  story  —  I  had  no  reason  to  complain  — 
though  every  now  and  then  I  could  see  him  wince  under  the 
knowledge  I  must  needs  show  of  the  persons  and  places  concerned 

—  a  knowledge  I  could  only  have  got  from  her.  And  she  stood  by 
meanwhile  like  a  statue.  Not  a  word,  not  a  look,  so  far,  though 
she  had  been  forced  to  touch  my  hand.  But  my  instinct  saved 
me.     I  roused  her  —  I  played  upon  her!     I  took  the  line  that  I 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  243 

was  morally  certain  slie  had  been  taking  in  their  tete-a-tete.  Why 
not  a  scnffle?  —  a  general  scrimmage  ?  —  in  -which  it  was  matter  of 
accident  who  fell?  The  man  sm-ely  was  inoffensive  and  gentle, 
incapable  of  deliberate  murder.  And  as  to  the  evidence  of  hatred, 
it  told  both  ways.  He  stiffened  and  was  silent.  What  a  fine  brow 
he  has  —  a  look  sometimes,  when  he  is  moved,  of  antique  power 
and  probity !  But  she  —  she  trembled — animation  came  back.  She 
would  almost  have  spoken  to  me  —  but  I  did  well  not  to  prolong 
it  —  to  hurry  on." 

Then  he  took  the  telegram  out  of  his  pocket  which  had  been  put 
into  his  hands  as  he  reached  the  hotel,  his  mouth  quivering  again 
with  the  exultatioir  which  he  had  felt  when  he  had  received  it.  It 
recalled  to  his  ranging  memory  all  the  details  of  his  hurried  inter- 
view with  the  little  Widrington  solicitor,  who  had  already  scented 
a  job  in  the  matter  of  Kurd's  defence.  This  man  —  needy, 
shrewd,  and  well  equipped  with  local  knowledge  —  had  done  work 
for  Wharton  and  the  party,  and  asked  nothing  better  than  to 
stand  well  with  the  future  member  for  the  division.  "  There  is 
a  lady,"  Wharton  had  said,  "  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Boyce  of  Mellor, 
who  is  already  very  much  interested  in  this  fellow  and  his  family. 
She  takes  this  business  greatly  to  heart.  I  have  seen  her  this 
morning,  but  had  no  time  to  discuss  the  matter  with  her.  She 
will,  I  have  little  doubt,  try  to  help  the  relations  in  the  arrange- 
ments for  the  defence.  Go  to  her  this  morning — tell  her  that  the 
case  has  my  sympathy  —  that,  as  she  knows,  I  am  a  barrister,  and, 
if  she  wishes  it,  I  will  defend  Hurd.  I  shall  be  hard  put  to  it  to 
get  up  the  case  with  the  election  coming  on,  but  I  will  do  it  — for 
the  sake  of  the  public  interest  involved.  You  understand?  Her 
father  is  a  Tory  —  and  she  is  just  about  to  marry  Mr.  Raeburn. 
Her  position,  thei'efore,  is  difficult.  Nevertheless,  she  will  feel 
strongly  —  she  does  feel  strongly  about  this  case,  and  about  the 
whole  game  system  —  and  I  feel  moved  to  support  her.  She  will 
take  her  own  line,  whatever  happens.  See  her  —  see  the  wife,  too, 
who  is  entirely  under  Miss  Boyce's  influence  —  and  wire  to  nie  at 
my  hotel  at  Birmingham.  If  they  wish  to  make  other  arrange- 
ments, well  and  good.  I  shall  have  all  the  more  time  to  give  to 
the  election." 

Leaving  this  commission  behind  him,  he  had  started  on  his 
journey.  At  the  end  of  it  a  telegram  had  been  handed  to  him  on 
the  stairs  of  his  hotel : 

"Have  seen  the  lady,  also  Mrs.  Kurd.  You  are  urgently  asked 
to  undertake  defence." 

He  spread  it  out  before  him  now,  and  pondered  it.  The  bit  of 
flimsy  paper  contained  for  him  the  promise  of  all  he  most  coveted, 
—  influence,  emotion,  excitement.     "She  will  have  returns  upon 


244  MAKCELLA  book  n 

herself,"  he  thought  smiling,  "when  I  see  her  again.  She  will  be 
dignified,  resentful ;  she  will  suspect  everything  I  say  or  do  —  still 
more,  she  will  suspect  herself.  No  matter  !  The  situation  is  in  my 
hands.  Whether  I  succeed  or  fail,  she  will  be  forced  to  work  with 
me,  to  consult  with  me  —  she  will  owe  nie  gratitude.  What  made 
her  consent?  —  she  must  have  felt  it  in  some  sort  a  humiliation. 
Is  it  that  Raeburn  has  been  driving  her  to  strong  measures  —  that 
she  wants,  woman-like,  to  win,  and  thought  me  after  all  her  best 
chance,  and  put  her  pride  in  her  pocket  ?  Or  is  it  ?  —  ah !  one 
should  put //ia<  out  of  one's  head.  It's  like  wine — it  unsteadies 
one.  And  for  a  thing  like  this  one  must  go  into  training.  Shall 
I  write  to  her  —  there  is  just  time  now,  before  I  start  —  take  the 
lofty  tone,  the  equal  masculine  tone,  which  I  have  noticed  she 
likes?  —  ask  her  pardon  for  an  act  of  madness — before  we  go 
together  to  the  rescue  of  a  life  ?  It  might  do  —  it  might  go  down. 
But  no,  I  think  not !  Let  the  situation  develop  itself.  Action 
and  reaction  —  the  unexpected  —  I  commit  myself  to  that.  She  — 
marry  Aldous  Raeburn  in  a  month?  Well,  she  may  —  certainly 
she  may.  But  there  is  no  need  for  me,  I  think,  to  take  it  greatly 
into  account.  Curious !  twenty-four  hours  ago  I  thought  it  all 
done  with  —  dead  and  done  with.  'So  like  Provvy,'  as  Bentham 
used  to  say,  when  he  heard  of  anything  particularly  unseemly  in 
the  way  of  natural  catastrophe.  Now  to  dine,  and  be  off !  How 
little  sleep  can  I  do  with  in  the  next  fortnight  ?  " 

He  rang,  ordered  his  cab,  and  then  went  to  the  coffee-room  for 
some  hasty  food.  As  he  was  passing  one  of  the  small  tables  with 
which  the  room  was  filled,  a  man  who  was  dining  there  with  a 
friend  recognised  him  and  gave  him  a  cold  nod.  Wharton  walked 
on  to  the  further  end  of  the  room,  and,  while  waiting  for  his  meal, 
buried  himself  in  the  local  evening  paper,  which  already  contained 
a  report  of  his  speech. 

"  Did  you  see  that  man  ?  "  asked  the  stranger  of  his  friend. 

"  The  small  young  fellow  with  the  curly  hair?" 

"  Small  young  fellow,  indeed !  He  is  the  wiriest  athlete  T  know 
—  extraordinary  physical  strength  for  his  size — and  one  of  the 
cleverest  rascals  out  as  a  politician.  I  am  a  neighbour  of  his  in 
the  countiy.  His  property  joins  mine.  I  knew  his  father  —  a 
little,  dried-up  old  chap  of  the  old  school  —  very  elegant  manners 
and  very  obstinate  —  worried  to  death  by  his  wife  —  oh,  my  good- 
ness !  such  a  woman !  " 

"  What's  the  name  ?  "  said  the  friend,  interrupting. 

"  Wharton  —  H.  S.  Wharton.  His  mother  was  a  daughter  of 
Lord  Westgate,  and  her  mother  was  an  actress  whom  the  old  lord 
married  in  his  dotage.  Lady  Mildred  Wharton  was  like  Garrick, 
only  natural  when  she  was  acting,  which  she  did  on  every  possible 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  245 

occasion.  A  preposterous  woman !  Old  Wharton  ought  to  have 
beaten  her  for  her  handwriting,  and  murdered  her  for  her  gowns. 
Her  signature  took  a  sheet  of  note-paper,  and  as  for  her  dress 
I  never  could  get  out  of  her  way.  Whatever  part  of  the  room  1 
happened  to  be  in  I  always  found  my  feet  tangled  in  her  skirts. 
Somehow,  I  never  could  understand  how  she  was  able  to  find  so 
much  stuff  of  one  pattern,  but  it  was  only  to  make  you  notice  her, 
like  all  the  rest.  Every  bit  of  her  was  a  pose,  and  the  maternal 
pose  was  the  worst  of  all." 

"H.  S.  Wharton?"  said  the  other.  "Why,  that's  the  man  who 
has  been  speaking  here  to-day.  I've  just  been  reading  the  account 
of  it  in  the  Evening  Star.  A  big  meeting  —  called  by  a  joint 
committee  of  the  leading  Birmingham  trades  to  consider  the 
Liberal  election  progranrme  as  it  affects  labour  —  that's  the  man 

—  he's  been  at  it  hammer  and  tongs  —  red-hot  —  all  the  usual 
devices  for  harrying  the  employer  out  of  existence,  with  a  few 
trifles  —  graduated  income-tax  and  land  nationalisation  —  thrown 
in.     Oh !  that's  the  man,  is  it?  —  they  say  he  had  a  great  reception 

—  spoke  brilliantly  —  and  is  certainly  going  to  get  into  Parliament 
next  week." 

The  speaker,  wlio  had  the  air  of  a  shrewd  and  prosperous  man- 
ufacturer, put  up  his  eyeglass  to  look  at  this  young  Robespierre. 
His  vis-a-vis  —  a  stout  country  gentleman  who  had  been  in  the 
army  and  knocked  about  the  world  before  coming  into  his  estate 

—  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  So  I  hear  —  he  daren't  f  liow  his  nose  as  a  candidate  in  our 
part  of  the  world,  though  of  course  he  does  us  all  the  harm  he 
can.  I  remember  a  good  story  of  his  mother  —  she  quarrelled 
with  her  husband  and  all  her  relations,  his  and  hers,  and  then  she 
took  to  speaking  in  public,  accompanied  by  her  dear  boy.  On  one 
occasion  she  was  speaking  at  a  market  town  near  us,  and  telling 
the  farmers  that  as  far  as  she  was  concerned  she  would  like  to  see 
the  big  properties  cut  up  to-morrow.  The  sooner  her  father's  and 
husband's  estates  were  made  into  small  holdings  stocked  with  pub- 
lic capital  the  better.  After  it  was  all  over,  a  friend  of  mine,  who 
was  there,  was  coming  home  in  a  sort  of  omnibus  that  ran  between 
the  town  and  a  neighbouring  village.  He  found  himself  between 
two  fat  farmers,  and  this  was  the  conversation  —  broad  Lincoln- 
shire, of  course  :  '  Did  tha  hear  Lady  Mildred  Wharton  say  them 
things,  Willum?'  '  Aye,  a  did.'  '  What  did  tha  think,  Willum?' 
'What  did  tha  think,  George?'  *  Wal,  aa  thowt  Laady  Mildred 
Wharton  wor  a  graat  fule,  Willum,  if  tha  asks  me.'  '  I'll  uphowd 
tha,  George!  I'll  uphowd  tha!'  said  the  other,  and  then  they 
talked  no  more  for  the  rest  of  the  journey." 

The  friend  laughed.    , 


246  MARCELLA  book  ii 

"  So  it  was  from  the  dear  mamma  that  the  young  man  got  his 
opinions  ?  " 

"  Of  course.  She  dragged  him  into  every  absurdity  she  could 
from  tlie  time  he  was  fifteen.  When  the  husband  died  she  tried 
to  get  the  servants  to  come  in  to  meals,  but  the  butler  struck.  So 
did  Wharton  himself,  who,  for  a  Socialist,  has  always  showed  a 
very  pretty  turn  for  comfort.  I  am  bound  to  say  he  was  cut  up 
when  she  died.  It  was  the  only  time  I  ever  felt  like  being  civil  to 
him  —  in  those  months  after  she  dejaarted.  I  suppose  she  was 
devoted  to  him  — which  after  all  is  something." 

"  Good  heavens ! "  said  the  other,  still  lazily  turning  over  the 
pages  of  the  newspaper  as  they  sat  waiting  for  theii-  second  course, 
"here  is  another  poaching  murder  —  in  Brookshire — the  third  I 
have  noticed  within  a  month.  On  Lord  Maxwell's  property — you 
know  them  ?  " 

"  I  know  the  old  man  a  little  —  fine  old  fellow  !  They'll  make 
him  President  of  the  Council,  I  suppose.  He  can't  have  much 
work  left  in  him ;  but  it  is  such  a  popular,  respectable  name.  Ah  ! 
I'm  sorry;  the  sort  of  thing  to  disti'ess  him  terribly." 

"  I  see  the  grandson  is  standing." 

"  Oh  yes  ;  will  get  in  too.  A  queer  sort  of  man  —  great  ability 
and  high  character.  But  you  can't  imagine  him  getting  on  in  pol- 
itics, unless  it's  by  sheer  weight  of  wealth  and  family  influence. 
He'll  find  a  scruple  in  every  bush  —  never  stand  the  rough  work  of 
the  House,  or  get  on  with  the  men.  My  goodness  !  you  have  to  pull 
with  some  queer  customers  nowadays.  By  the  way,  I  hear  he  is 
making  an  unsatisfactory  marriage  —  a  girl  very  handsome,  but 
with  no  manners,  and  like  nobody  else  —  the  daughter,  too,  of  an 
extremely  shady  father.  It's  surprising;  you'd  have  thought  a 
man  like  Aldous  Raeburn  would  have  looked  for  the  pick  of 
things." 

"  Perhaps  it  was  she  looked  for  the  pick  of  things ! "  said  the 
other,  with  a  blunt  laugh.  "  Waiter,  another  bottle  of  cham- 
pagne." 

CHAPTER  XI 

Marcella  was  lying  on  the  sofa  in  the  Mellor  drawing-room. 
The  February  evening  had  just  been  shut  out,  but  she  had  told 
William  not  to  bring  the  lamps  till  they  were  rung  for.  Even  the 
fire-light  seemed  more  than  she  could  bear.  She  was  utterly  ex- 
hausted both  in  body  and  mind ;  yet,  as  she  lay  there  with  shut 
eyes,  and  hands  clasped  under  her  cheek,  a  start  went  through  her 
at  every  sound  in  the  house,  which  showed  that  she  was  not  rest- 
ing, but  listening.     She  had  spent  the  morning  in  the  Hurds'  cot- 


CHAP.  XI  MARCELLA  247 

tage,  sitting  by  Mrs.  Hurd  and  nursing  the  little  boy.  Minta  Hiivd, 
always  delicate  and  consumptive,  was  now  generally  too  ill  from 
shock  and  misery  to  be  anywhere  but  in  her  bed,  and  Willie  was 
growing  steadily  weaker,  though  the  child's  spirit  was  such  that 
he  would  insist  on  dressing,  on  hearing  and  knowing  everything 
about  his  father,  and  on  moving  about  the  house  as  usual.  Yet 
every  movement  of  his  wasted  bones  cost  him  the  effort  of  a  hero, 
and  the  dumb  signs  in  him  of  longing  for  his  father  increased  the 
general  impression  as  of  some  patient  creature  driven  by  Nature 
to  monstrous  and  disproportionate  extremity. 

The  plight  of  this  handful  of  human  beings  worked  in  Marcella 
like  some  fevering  torture.  She  was  wholly  out  of  gear  physically 
and  morally.  Another  practically  sleepless  night,  peopled  with 
images  of  horror,  had  decreased  her  stock  of  sane  self-control, 
already  lessened  by  long  conflict  of  feeling  and  the  pressure  of 
self-contempt.  Now,  as  she  lay  listening  for  Aldous  Kaeburn's 
ring  and  step,  she  hardly  knew  whether  to  be  angry  with  him  for 
coming  so  late,  or  miserable  that  he  should  come  at  all.  That 
there  was  a  long  score  to  settle  between  herself  and  him  she  knew 
well.  Shame  for  an  experience  which  seemed  to  her  maiden  sense 
indelible  —  both  a  weakness  and  a  treachery — lay  like  a  dull 
weight  on  heart  and  conscience.  But  she  would  not  realise  it,  she 
would  not  act  upon  it.  She  shook  the  moral  debate  from  her  im- 
patiently. Aldous  should  have  his  due  all  in  good  time  —  should 
have  ample  opportunity  of  deciding  whether  he  would,  after  all, 
marry  such  a  girl  as  she.  Meanwhile  his  attitude  with  regard  to 
the  murder  exasperated  her.  Yet,  in  some  strange  way  it  relieved 
her  to  be  angry  and  sore  with  him  —  to  have  a  grievance  she  could 
avow,  and  on  which  she  made  it  a  merit  to  dwell.  His  gentle,  yet 
firm  difference  of  opinion  with  her  on  the  subject  struck  her  as 
something  new  in  him.  It  gave  her  a  kind  of  fierce  pleasure  to 
fight  it.  He  seemed  somehow  to  be  providing  her  with  excuses  — 
to  be  coming  down  to  her  level  —  to  be  equalling  wrong  with 
wrong. 

The  door  handle  turned.  At  last!  She  sprang  up.  But  it 
was  only  William  coming  in  w^ith  the  evening  post.  Mrs.  Boyce 
followed  him.  She  took  a  quiet  look  at  her  daughter,  and  asked 
if  her  headache  Avas  better,  and  then  sat  dowMi  near  her  to  some 
needle-work.  During  these  two  days  she  had  been  unusually  kind 
to  Marcella.  She  had  none  of  the  little  feminine  arts  of  consola- 
tion. She  was  incapable  of  fussing,  and  she  never  caressed.  But 
from  the  moment  that  jNIarcella  had  come  home  from  the  village 
that  morning,  a  pale,  hollow-eyed  wreck,  the  mother  had  asserted 
her  authority.  She  would  not  hear  of  the  girl's  crossing  the 
threshold  again ;  she  had  put  her  on  the  sofa  and  dosed  her  with 


248  MARCELLA  book  n 

sal-volatile.  And  Marcella  was  too  exhausted  to  rebel.  She  had 
only  stipulated  that  a  note  should  be  sent  to  Aldous,  asking  him 
to  come  on  to  Mellor  with  the  news  as  soon  as  the  verdict  of 
the  coroner's  jury  should  be  given.  The  jury  had  been  sitting  all 
day,  and  the  verdict  was  expected  in  the  evening. 

Marcella  turned  over  her  letters  till  she  came  to  one  from  a 
London  firm  which  contained  a  number  of  cloth  patterns.  As  she 
touched  it  she  threw  it  aside  with  a  sudden  gesture  of  impatience, 
and  sat  upriglit. 

"  Mamma !     I  have  something  to  say  to  yon." 

"  Yes,  my  dear." 

"  Mamma,  the  wedding  must  be  put  off !  —  it  must  I  —  for  some 
weeks.  I  have  been  thinking  about  it  while  I  have  been  lying 
here.  How  can  I?  —  you  can  see  for  yourself.  That  miserable 
woman  depends  on  me  altogether.  How  can  I  spend  my  time  on 
clothing  and  dressmakers  ?  I  feel  as  if  I  could  think  of  nothing- 
else  —  nothing  else  in  the  world  —  but  her  and  her  children." 
She  spoke  with  difficulty,  her  voice  high  and  strained.  "  The 
assizes  may  be  held  that  very  week  —  who  knows  ? —  the  very  day 
we  are  married." 

She  stopped,  looking  at  her  mother  almost  threateningly.  Mrs. 
Boyce  showed  no  sign  of  surprise.     She  put  her  work  down. 

"  I  had  imagined  you  might  say  something  of  the  kind,"  she 
said  after  a  pause.  "  I  don't  know  that,  from  your  point  of  vieAV, 
it  is  unreasonable.  But,  of  course,  you  must  understand  that  very 
few  people  will  see  it  from  your  point  of  view.  Aldous  Raeburn 
may  —  you  must  know  best.  But  his  people  certainly  won't ;  and 
your  father  will  think  it  —  " 

"  Madness,"  she  was  going  to  say,  but  with  her  usual  instinct 
for  the  moderate  fastidious  word  she  corrected  it  to  "  foolish." 

Marcella's  tii'ed  eyes  were  all  wilfulness  and  defiance. 

"  I  can't  help  it.  I  couldn't  do  it.  I  will  tell  Aldous  at  once. 
It  must  be  put  off  for  a  month.  And  even  that,"  she  added  with 
a  shudder,  "  will  be  bad  enough." 

Mrs.  Boyce  could  not  help  an  unperceived  shrug  of  the  shoulders, 
and  a  movement  of  pity  towards  the  future  husband.  Then  she 
said  drily,  — 

"You  must  always  consider  whether  it  is  just  to  Mr.  Raeburn  to 
let  a  matter  of  this  kind  interfere  so  considerably  with  his  wishes 
and  his  plans.  He  must,  I  suj^pose,  be  in  London  for  Parliament 
within  six  weeks." 

Marcella  did  not  answer.  She  sat  with  her  hands  round  her 
knees  lost  in  perplexities.  The  wedding,  as  originally  fixed,  was 
now  three  weeks  and  three  days  off.  After  it,  she  and  Aldous 
were  to  have  spent  a  short  fortnight's  honeymoon  at  a  famous 


CHAP.  XI  MARCELLA  249 

house  in  the  north,  lent  theni  for  the  occasion  by  a  Duke  who  was 
a  cousin  of  Aldous's  on  the  niotlier's  side,  and  had  more  liouses 
than  he  knew  wliat  to  do  with.  Then  they  were  to  go  immediately 
lip  to  London  for  the  opening  of  Parliament.  The  furnishing  of 
the  Mayfair  house  was  being  pressed  on.  In  her  new-born  impa- 
tience with  such  things,  JVIarcella  had  hardly  of  late  concerned 
herself  with  it  at  all,  and  Miss  Raeburn,  scandalised,  yet  not  un- 
willing, had  been  doing  the  whole  of  it,  subject  to  conscientious 
worryings  of  the  bride,  whenever  she  could  be  got  hold  of,  on  the 
subject  of  papers  and  curtains. 

As  they  sat  silent,  the  unspoken  idea  in  the  mother's  mind  was 
—  "Eight  weeks  more  will  carry  iis  past  the  execution."  Mrs. 
Boyce  had  already  possessed  herself  very  clearly  of  the  facts  of  the 
case,  and  it  was  her  perception  that  Marcella  was  thi'owing  herself 
headlong  into  a  hopeless  struggle  —  together  with  something  else 
— -a  confession  perhaps  of  a  touch  of  greatness  in  the  girl's  temper, 
passionate  and  violent  as  it  was,  that  had  led  to  this  unwonted 
softness  of  manner,  this  absence  of  sarcasm. 

Very  much  the  same  thought — only  treated  as  a  nameless  horror 
not  to  be  recognised  or  admitted  —  was  in  Marcella's  mind  also, 
joined  however  with  another,  unsuspected  even  by  Mrs.  Boyce's 
acuteness.  "Very  likely  —  when  I  tell  him — he  will  not  want  to 
marry  me  at  all  —  and  of  course  1  shall  tell  him." 

But  not  yet  —  certainly  not  yet.  She  had  the  instinctive  sense 
that  during  the  next  few  weeks  she  should  want  all  her  dignity 
with  Aldoiis,  that  she  could  not  afford  to  put  herself  at  a  disad- 
vantage with  him.  To  be  troubled  about  her  own  sins  at  such 
a  moment  would  be  like  the  meanness  of  the  lazy  and  canting- 
Christian,  who  whines  about  saving  his  soul  while  he  ought  to  be 
rather  occupied  with  feeding  the  bodies  of  his  wife  and  children. 

A  ring  at  the  front  door.  Marcella  rose,  leaning  one  hand  on 
the  end  of  the  sofa  —  a  long  slim  figure  in  her  black  dress  —  hag- 
gard and  pathetic. 

When  Aldous  entered,  her  face  was  one  question.  He  went  up 
to  her  and  took  her  hand. 

"  In  the  case  of  Westall  the  verdict  is  one  of  '  Wilful  Murder  ' 
against  Hurd.  In  that  of  poor  Charlie  Dynes  the  court  is  ad- 
journed. Enough  evidence  has  been  taken  to  justify  burial.  But 
there  is  news  to-night  that  one  of  the  Widrington  gang  has  turned 
informer,  and  the  police  say  they  will  have  their  hands  on  them 
all  within  the  next  two  or  three  days." 

Marcella  withdrew  herself  from  him  and  fell  back  into  the  cor- 
ner of  the  sofa.  Shading  her  eyes  with  her  hand  she  tried  to  be 
very  composed  and  business-like. 

"Was  Hurd  himself  examined?  " 


250  MARCELLA  book  ii 

"  Yes,  under  the  new  Act.  He  gave  the  account  which  he  gave 
to  you  and  to  his  wife.     But  the  Court  —  " 

"  Did  not  believe  it  ?  " 

"  No.  The  evidence  of  motive  was  too  strong.  It  was  clear 
from  his  own  account  that  he  was  out  for  poaching  purposes,  that 
he  was  leading  the  Oxford  gang,  and  that  he  had  a  gun  while 
Westall  was  unarmed.  He  admitted  too  that  Westall  called  on 
him  to  give  up  the  bag  of  pheasants  he  held,  and  the  gun.  He 
refused.  Then  he  says  Westall  came  at  him,  and  he  fired.  Dick 
Patton  and  one  or  two  others  gave  evidence  as  to  the  language  he 
has  habitually  used  about  Westall  for  months  past." 

"  Cowards  —  curs  !  "  cried  Marcella,  clenching  both  her  hands,  a 
kind  of  sob  in  her  throat. 

Aldous,  already  white  and  careworn,  showed,  Mrs.  Boyce  thought, 
a  ray  of  indignation  for  an  instant.      Then  he  resumed  steadily  — 

"  And  Brown,  our  steward,  gave  evidence  as  to  his  employment 
since  October.  The  coroner  summed  up  carefully,  and  I  think 
fairly,  and  the  verdict  was  given  about  half-past  six." 

"  They  took  him  back  to  prison  ?  " 

"  Of  course.     He  comes  before  the  magistrates  on  Thursday.^' 

"  And  you  will  be  one  !  " 

The  girl's  tone  was  indescribable. 

Aldous  started.  Mrs.  Boyce  reddened  with  anger,  and  checking 
her  instinct  to  intervene  began  to  put  away  her  working  materials 
that  she  nught  leave  them  together.  While  she  was  still  busy 
Aldous  said  : 

"You  forget;  no  magistrate  ever  tries  a  case  in  which  he  is  per- 
sonally concerned.  I  shall  take  no  part  in  the  trial.  My  grand- 
father, of  course,  must  prosecute." 

"  But  it  will  be  a  bench  of  landlords,"  cried  Marcella  ;  "  of  men 
with  whom  a  poacher  is  already  condemned." 

"You  are  unjust  to  us,  I  think,"  said  Aldous,  slowly,  after  a 
pause,  during  which  Mrs.  Boyce  left  the  room  —  "to  some  of  us, 
at  any  rate.  Besides,  as  of  course  you  know,  the  case  will  be 
simply  sent  on  for  trial  at  the  assizes.  By  the  way"  —  his  tone 
changed  —  "I  hear  to-night  that  Harry  Wharton  undertakes  the 
defence." 

"Yes,"  said  Marcella,  defiantly.  "Is  there  anything  to  say 
against  it?  You  wouldn't  wish  Hard  not  to  be  defended,  I  sup- 
pose ?  " 

"  Marcella ! " 

Even  her  bitter  mood  was  pierced  by  the  tone.  She  had  never 
wounded  him  so  deeply  yet,  and  for  a 'moment  he  felt  the  situa- 
tion intolerable ;  the  surging  grievance  and  reproach,  with  which 
his  heart  was  really  full,  all  but  found  vent  in  an  outburst  which 


CHAP.  XI  MARCELLA  251 

would  liave  wholly  swept  away  his  ordinary  measure  and  self- 
control.  But  then,  as  he  looked  at  her,'  it  struck  his  lover's  sense 
painfully  how  pale  and  miserable  she  was.  He  could  not  scold ! 
But  it  came  home  to  him  strongly  that  for  her  own  sake  and  his 
it  would  be  better  there  should  be  explanations.  After  all  things 
had  been  going  untowardly  for  many  weeks.  His  nature  moved 
slowly  and  with  much  self-doubt,  but  it  was  plain  to  him  now  that 
he  must  make  a  stand. 

After  his  cry,  her  first  instinct  was  to  apologise.  Then  the 
words  stuck  in  her  throat.  To  her,  as  to  him,  they  seemed  to  be 
close  on  a  trial  of  strength.  If  she  could  not  influence  him  in  this 
matter  —  so  obvious,  as  it  seemed  to  her,  and  so  near  to  her  heai-t 
—  what  was  to  become  of  that  lead  of  hei's  in  their  mari-ied  life, 
on  which  she  had  been  reckoning  from  the  beginning?  All  that 
was  worst  in  her  and  all'that  was  best  I'ose  to  the  struggle. 

But,  as  he  did  not  speak,  she  looked  up  at  last. 

"  I  was  waiting,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice. 

"What  for?" 

"Waiting  till  you  should  tell  me  you  did  not  mean  what  you 
said." 

She  saw  that  he  was  painfully  moved ;  she  also  saw  that  he  was 
introducing  something  into  their  relation,  an  element  of  proud  self- 
assertion,  which  she  had  never  felt  in  it  before.  Her  own  vanity 
instantly  rebelled. 

"I  ought  not  to  have  said  exactly  what  I  did,"  she  said,  almost 
stifled  by  her  own  excitement,  and  making  great  efforts  not  to 
play  the  mere  wilful  child ;  "  that  I  admit.  But  it  has  been  clear 
tome  from  the  beginning  that  —  that"  —  her  words  hurried,  she 
took  up  a  book  and  restlessly  lifted  it  and  let  it  fall  —  "  you  have 
never  looked  at  this  thing  justly.  You  have  looked  at  the  crime 
as  any  one  must  who  is  a  landowner ;  you  have  never  allowed  for 
the  provocation;  you  have  not  let  yourself  feel  pity  —  " 

He  made  an  exclamation. 

"  Do  you  know  where  I  was  before  I  went  into  the  inquest  ?  " 

"  No,"  she  said  defiantly,  determined  not  to  be  impressed,  feel- 
ing a  childish  irritation  at  the  interruption. 

"I  was  with  Mrs.  Westall.  Harden  and  I  went  in  to  see  her. 
She  is  a  hard,  silent  woman.  She  is  clearly  not  popular  in  the 
village,  and  no  one  comes  in  to  her.  Her  "  —  he  hesitated  —  "  her 
baby  is  expected  before  long.  She  is  in  such  a  state  of  shock  and 
excitement  that  Clarke  tliinks  it  quite  possible  she  may  go  out  of 
her  mind.  I  saw  her  sitting  by  the  fire,  quite  silent,  not  ciying, 
but  with  a  wild  eye  that  means  mischief.  We  have  sent  in  a  nurse 
to  help  ISIrs.  Jellison  watch  her.  She  seems  to  care  nothing  about 
her  boy.     Ever}i;hing  that  that  woman  most  desired  in  life  has 


252  MARCELLA  book  ii 

been  struck  from  her  at  a  blow.  Why?  That  a  man  wlio  was 
in  no  stress  of  poverty,  who  had  friends  and  employment,  should 
indulge  himself  in  acts  which  he  knew  to  be  against  the  law,  and 
had  promised  you  and  his  wife  to  forego,  and  should  at  the  same 
time  satisfy  a  wild  beast's  hatred  against  the  man,  who  was  simply 
defending  his  master's  property.  Have  ijou  no  pity  for  Mrs. 
Westall  or  her  child  ?  " 

He  spoke  as  calmly  as  he  could,  making  his  appeal  to  reason 
and  moral  sense ;  but,  in  reality,  every  word  was  charged  with 
electric  feeling. 

"I  am  sorry  for  her!  "  cried  Marcella,  passionately.  "  But,  after 
all,  how  can  one  feel  for  the  oppressor,  or  those  connected  with 
him,  as  one  does  for  the  victim?  "  He  shook  his  head,  protesting 
against  the  word,  but  she  rushed  on.  "  You  do  know  —  for  I  told 
you  yesterday  —  how  under  the  shelter  of  this  hateful  game  system 
Westall  made  Kurd's  life  a  burden  to  him  when  he  was  a  young 
man  —  how  he  had  begun  to  bully  him  again  this  past  year.  We 
had  the  same  sort  of  disj)ute  the  other  day  about  that  murder  in 
Ireland.  You  w^ere  shocked  that  I  would  not  condemn  the  Moon- 
lighters wlio  had  shot  their  landlord  from  behind  a  hedge,  as  you 
did.  You  said  the  man  had  tried  to  do  his  duty,  and  that  the 
nuirder  was  brutal  and  unprovoked.  But  I  thought  of  the  system 
—  of  the  memories  in  the  minds  of  the  murderers.  There  icere 
excuses  —  he  suffered  for  his  father  —  I  am  not  going  to  judge 
that  as  I  judge  other  murders.  So,  when  a  Czar  of  Russia  is 
l)lown  up,  do  you  expect  one  to  think  only  of  his  wife  and 
children?  No!  I  will  think  of  the  tyranny  and  the  revolt;  I 
will  pray,  yes,  pray  that  I  might  have  courage  to  do  as  they  did  ! 
You  may  think  me  wild  and  mad.  I  dare  say.  I  am  made  so. 
I  shall  always  feel  so  !  " 

She  flung  out  her  words  at  him,  every  limb  quivering  under  the 
emotion  of  them.  His  cool,  penetrating  eye,  this  manner  she  had 
never  yet  known  in  him,  exasperated  her. 

"  Where  was  the  tyranny  in  this  case?"  he  asked  her  quietly. 
"  1  agree  with  you  that  there  are  murders  and  murders.  But  I 
thought  your  point  was  that  here  was  neither  murder  nor  attack, 
but  only  an  act  of  self-defence.     That  is  Kurd's  plea." 

She  hesitated  and  stumbled.  "  T  know,"  she  said,  "  I  know.  I 
believe  it.  But,  even  if  the  attack  had  been  on  Kurd's  part,  I 
shall  still  find  excuses,  because  of  the  system,  and  because  of 
AVestall's  hatefulness." 

He  shook  his  head  again. 

"■  Because  a  man  is  harsh  and  masterfid,  and  uses  stinging 
language,  is  he  to  be  shot  down  like  a  dog  ?  " 

There   was   a   silence.      Marcella  was    lashing   herself    up   by 


CHAP.  XI  MARCELLA  "  253 

thoughts  of  the  deformed  man  in  his  cell,  looking  forward  after 
the  wretched,  unsatisfied  life,  which  was  all  society  had  allowed 
him,  to  the  violent  death  by  which  society  would  get  rid  of  him  — 
of  the  wife  yearning  her  heart  away  —  of  the  boy,  whom  other 
human  beings,  under  the  name  of  law,  were  about  to  separate 
from  his  father  for  ever.  At  last  she  broke  out  thickly  and 
indistinctly : 

"The  terrible  thing  is  that  I  cannot  count  upon  you  —  that  now 
I  cannot  make  you  feel  as  I  do  —  feel  with  me.  And  by-and-by, 
when  I  shall  want  your  help  desperately,  when  your  help  might 
be  everything  —  I  suppose  it  wdll  be  no  good  to  ask  it." 

He  started,  and  bending  forward  he  possessed  himself  of  both 
her  hands  —  her  hot  trembling  hands  —  and  kissed  them  with  a 
passionate  tenderness. 

"  What  help  will  you  ask  of  me  that  I  cannot  give  ?  That 
would  be  liard  to  bear !  " 

Still  held  by  him,  she  answered  his  question  by  another  : 

"  Give  me  your  idea  of  what  will  happen.  Tell  me  how  you 
think  it  will  end." 

"  I  shall  only  distress  you,  dear,"  he  said  sadly. 

"No;  tell  me.  You  think  him  guilty.  You  believe  he  will  be 
convicted." 

"  Unless  some  wholly  fresh  evidence  is  forthcoming,"  he  said 
reluctantly,  "  I  can  see  no  other  issue." 

"  Very  well ;  then  he  will  be  sentenced  to  death.  But,  after 
sentence  —  I  know  —  that  man  from  Widrington,  that  solicitor 
told  me  —  if  —  if  strong  influence  is  brought  to  bear  — if  anybody 
whose  word  counts  —  if  Lord  Maxwell  and  you,  were  to  join  the 
movement  to  save  him — There  is  sure  to  be  a  movement  —  the 
Radicals  will  take  it  up.  Will  you  do  it  —  will  you  promise  me 
now  —  for  my  sake  ?  " 

He  was  silent. 

She  looked  at  him,  all  her  heart  burning  in  her  eyes,  conscious 
of  her  woman's  power  too,  and  pressing  it. 

"  If  that  man  is  hung,"  she  said  pleadingly,  "  it  will  leave  a 
mark  on  my  life  nothing  will  ever  smooth  out.  I  shall  feel  myself 
somehow  responsible.  I  shall  say  to  myself,  if  I  had  not  been 
thinking  about  my  own  selfish  affairs  —  about  getting  married  — 
about  the  straw-plaiting  —  T  might  have  seen  what  was  going  on. 
I  might  have  saved  these  people,  who  have  been  my  friends  —  my 
real  friends  —  from  this  horror." 

She  drew  her  hands  away  and  fell  back  on  the  sofa,  pressing  her 
handkerchief  to  her  eyes.  "  If  you  had  seeu  her  this  morning !  " 
she  said  in  a  strangled  voice.  "She  was  saying,  'Oh,  miss,  if  they 
do  find  him  guilty,  they  can't  hang  him  —  not  my  poor  deformed 


254  MARCELLA  book  ii 

Jim,  that  never  had  a  chance  of  being  like  the  others.  Oh,  we'll 
beg  so  hard.  I  know  there's  many  people  will  speak  for  him. 
He  was  mad,  miss,  when  he  did  it.  He'd  never  been  himself,  not 
since  last  winter,  when  we  all  sat  and  starved,  and  he  was  driven 
out  of  his  senses  by  thinking  of  me  and  the  children.  You'll  get 
Mr.  Raeburn  to  speak  —  won't  you,  miss?  —  and  Lord  Maxwell? 
It  was  their  game.  I  know  it  was  their  game.  But  they'll  for- 
give him.  They're  such  great  people,  and  so  rich  —  and  we  — 
we've  always  had  such  a  struggle.  Oh,  the  bad  times  we've  had, 
and  no  one  know!  They'll  try  and  get  him  off,  miss?  Oh,  I'll  go 
and  heg  of  them.'  " 

She  stopped,  unable  to  trust  her  voice  any  further.  He  stooped 
over  her  and  kissed  her  brow.  There  was  a  certain  solemnity  in 
the  moment  for  both  of  them.  The  pity  of  human  fate  over- 
shadowed them.     At  last  he  said  firmly,  yet  with  great  feeling  : 

"  I  will  not  prejudge  anything,  that  I  promise  you.  I  will  keep 
my  mind  open  to  the  last.  But  —  I  should  like  to  say  —  it  would 
not  be  any  easier  to  me  to  throw  myself  into  an  agitation  for 
reprieve  because  this  man  was  tempted  to  crime  by  my  property  — 
on  my  land.  I  should  think  it  right  to  look  at  it  altogether  from 
the  public  point  of  view.  The  satisfaction  of  my  own  private 
compunctions  —  of  my  own  private  feelings — is  not  what  I  ought 
to  regard.  My  own  share  in  the  circumstances,  in  the  conditions 
which  made  such  an  act  possible  does  indeed  concern  me  deeply. 
You  cannot  imagine  but  that  the  moral  problem  of  it  has  possessed 
me  ever  since  this  dreadful  thing  happened.  It  troubled  me  much 
before.  Now,  it  has  become  an  oppression  —  a  torture.  I  have 
never  seen  my  grandfather  so  moved,  so  distressed,  in  all  my 
remembrance  of  him.  Yet  he  is  a  man  of  the  old  school,  with  the 
old  standards.  As  for  me,  if  ever  I  come  to  the  estate  I  will  change 
the  whole  system,  I  will  run  no  risks  of  such  human  wreck  and 
ruin  as  this  —  " 

His  voice  faltered. 

"But,"  he  resumed,  speaking  steadily  again,  "I  ought  to  warn 
you  that  such  considerations  as  these  will  not  affect  my  judgment 
of  this  particular  case.  In  the  first  place,  I  have  no  quarrel  with 
capital  punishment  as  such.  I  do  not  believe  we  could  rightly  give 
it  up.  Your  attitude  properly  means  that  wherever  we  can  legiti- 
mately feel  pity  for  a  murderer,  we  should  let  him  escape  his  pen- 
alty. I,  on  the  other  hand,  believe  that  if  the  murderer  saw  things 
as  they  truly  are,  he  would  himself  claim  his  own  death,  as  his  best 
chance,  his  only  chance — in  this  mysterious  universe!  —  of  self- 
recovery.  Then  it  comes  to  this  —  was  the  act  murder  ?  The 
English  law  of  murder  is  not  perfect,  but  it  appears  to  me  to  be 
substantially  just,  and  guided  by  it  —  " 


CHAP.  XI  MARCELLA  255 

"  You  talk  as  if  there  were  no  such  things  as  mercy  and  pity  in 
the  world,"  she  interrupted  wildly  ;  "  as  if  law  were  not  made  and 
administered  by  men  of  just  the  same  stuff  and  fabric  as  the  law- 
breaker I " 

He  looked  troubled. 

"Ah,  but  law  is  something  beyond  laws  or  those  who  administer 
them,"  he  said  in  a  lower  tone  ;  "  and  the  law  —  the  obligation-sense 

—  of  our  own  race  and  time,  however  imperfect  it  may  be,  is  sacred, 
not  because  it  has  been  imposed  upon  us  from  without,  but  because 
it  has  grown  up  to  what  it  is,  out  of  our  own  best  life  —  ours,  yet 
not  ours  —  the  best  proof  we  have,  when  we  look  back  at  it  in 
the  larg'e,  when  we  feel  its  work  in  ourselves  of  some  diviner 
power  than  our  own  Avill  —  our  best  clue  to  what  that  power 
may  be !  " 

He  spoke  at  first,  looking  away  —  wrestling  out  his  thought,  as 
it  were,  by  himself  —  then  turning  back  to  hei',  his  eyes  emphasised 
the  appeal  implied,  though  not  expressed,  in  what  he  said  —  intense 
appeal  to  her  for  sympathy,  forbearance,  mutual  respect,  through 
all  acuteness  of  difference.     His  look  both  promised  and  implored. 

He  had  spoken  to  her  but  very  rarely  or  indirectly  as  yet  of  his 
own  religious  or  philosophical  beliefs.  She  was  in  a  stage  when 
such  things  interested  her  but  little,  and  reticence  in  personal 
matters  was  so  much  the  law  of  his  life  that  even  to  her  expan- 
sion was  difficult.  So  that  —  inevitably  —  she  was  arrested,  for 
the  moment,  as  any  quick  perception  must  be,  by  the  things  that 
unveil  character. 

Then  an  upheaval  of  indignant  feeling  swept  the  impression 
away.     All  that  he  said  might  be  ideally,  profoundly  true  —  but 

—  the  red  blood  of  the  common  life  was  lacking  in  every  word  of 
it !  He  ought  to  be  incapable  of  saying  it  now.  Her  passionate 
question  was,  how  could  he  argue  —  how  could  he  hold  and  mark 
the  ethical  balance  —  when  a  ivoman  was  suffering,  when  children 
were  to  be  left  fatherless  ?  Besides  —  the  ethical  balance  itself  — 
does  it  not  alter  according  to  the  hands  that  hold  it  —  poacher  or 
landlord,  rich  or  poor  ? 

But  she  was  too  exhausted  to  carry  on  the  contest  in  words. 
Both  felt  it  would  have  to  be  renewed.  But  she  said  to  her- 
self secretly  that  Mr.  Wharton,  when  he  got  to  work,  would  alter 
the  whole  aspect  of  affairs.  And  she  knew  well  that  her  vantage- 
ground  as  towards  Aldous  was  strong. 

Then  at  last  he  was  free  to  turn  his  whole  attention  for  a  little 
to  her  and  her  physical  state,  which  made  him  miserable.  He  had 
never  imagined  that  any  one,  vigorous  and  healthy  as  she  was, 
could  look  so  worn  out  in  so  short  a  time.  She  let  him  talk  to 
her  —  lament,  entreat,  advise  —  and  at  last  she  took  advantage  of 


256  MAKCELLA  book  ii 

his  anxiety  and  her  admissions  to  come  to  the  poiiit,  to  plead  that 
the  marriage  should  be  put  off. 

She  used  the  same  arguments  that  she  had  done  to  her  mother. 

"  How  can  I  bear  to  be  thinking  of  these  things?" — she  pointed 
a  shaking  finger  at  the  dress  patterns  lying  scattered  on  the  table 
—  "  with  this  agony,  this  death,  under  my  eyes  ?  " 

It  was  a  great  blow  to  him,  and  tlie  practical  inconveniences 
involved  were  great.  But  the  fibre  of  him  —  of  which  she  had 
just  felt  the  toughness  —  was  delicate  and  sensitive  as  her  own, 
and  after  a  very  short  recoil  lie  met  her  with  great  chivalry  and 
sweetness,  agreeing  that  everything  should  be  put  off  for  six  weeks, 
till  Easter  in  fact.  She  would  have  been  very  grateful  to  him  but 
that  something  —  some  secret  thought  —  checked  the  words  she 
tried  to  say. 

"  I  must  go  home  then,"  he  said,  rising  and  trying  to  smile.  "  I 
shall  have  to  make  things  straight  with  Aunt  Neta,  and  set  a  great 
many  arrangements  in  train.  Now,  you  will  try  to  think  of  some- 
thing else  ?  Let  me  leave  you  with  a  book  that  I  can  imagine  you 
will  read."  / 

She  let  herself  be  tended  and  thought  for.  At  the  last,  just  as 
he  was  going,  he  said  : 

"  Have  you  seen  Mr.  Wharton  at  all  since  this  happened?  " 

His  manner  was  just  as  usual.  She  felt  that  her  eye  was  guilty, 
but  the  darkness  of  the  firelit  room  shielded  her. 

"  I  have  not  seen  him  since  we  met  hiui  in  the  drive.  I  saw  the 
solicitor  who  is  working  up  the  case  for  him  yesterday.  He  came 
over  to  see  Mrs.  Hurd  and  me.  I  had  not  thought  of  asking  him, 
but  we  agreed  that,  if  he  would  undertake  it,  it  would  be  the  best 
chance." 

"  It  is  probably  the  best  chance,"  said  Aldous,  thoughtfully. 
"  I  believe  Wharton  has  not  done  much  at  the  Bar  since  he  was 
called,  but  that,  no  doubt,  is  because  he  has  had  so  much  on  his 
hands  in  the  way  of  journalism  and  politics.  His  ability  is 
enough  for  anything,  and  he  will  throw  himself  into  this.  1  do 
not  think  Hurd  could  do  better." 

She  did  not  answer.  She  felt  that  he  was  magnanimous,  but 
felt  it  coldly,  witliout  emotion. 

He  came  and  stooped  over  her. 

"  Good-night  —  good-night  —  tired  child  —  dear  heart !  When  I 
saw  you  in  that  cottage  this  morning  I  thought  of  the  words, 
'  Give,  and  it  shall  be  given  unto  you.'  All  that  my  life  can  do  to 
pour  good  measure,  pressed  down,  rvmning  over,  into  yours,  I  vowed 
you  then ! " 

When  the  door  closed  upon  him,  Marcella,  stretched  in  the  dark- 
ness, shed  the  bitterest  tears  that  had  ever  yet  been  hers  —  tears 


CHAP.  XI  MARCELLA  257 

which  transformed  her  yovith  —  wliicli  baptised  her,  as  it  were, 
into  the  fuhiess  of  our  tragic  life. 

She  was  still  weeping  when  she  heard  the  door  softly  opened. 
She  sprang  up  and  dried  her  eyes,  but  the  little  figure  that  glided 
in  was  not  one  to  shrink  from.  Mary  Harden  came  and  sat  down 
beside  her. 

"  I  knew  you  would  be  miserable.  Let  me  come  and  cry  too. 
I  have  been  my  round  —  have  seen  them  all  —  and  I  came  to  bring 
you  news." 

"How  has  she  taken  —  the  verdict?"  asked  Marcella,  struggling 
with  her  sobs,  and  succeeding  at  last  in  composing  herself. 

"  She  was  prepared  for  it.  Charlie  told  her  when  he  saw  her 
after  you  left  this  afternoon  that  she  must  expect  it." 

There  was  a  pause. 

"  I  shall  soon  hear,  I  suppose,"  said  INIarcella,  in  a  hardening 
voice,  her  hands  round  her  knees,  "  what  Mr.  Wharton  is  doing 
for  the  defence.  He  will  appear  before  the  magistrates,  I  sup- 
pose." 

"Yes;  but  Charlie  thinks  the  defence  will  be  mainly  reserved. 
Only  a  little  more  than  a  fortnight  to  the  assizes !  The  time 
is  so  short.  But  now  this  man  has  turned  informer,  they  say 
the  case  is  quite  straightforward.  With  all  the  other  evidence 
the  police  have  there  will  be  no  ditficulty  in  trying  them  all. 
Marcella ! " 

"  Yes." 

Had  there  been  light  enough  to  show  it,  Mary's  face  would 
have  revealed  her  timidity. 

"  Marcella,  Charlie  asked  me  to  give  you  a  message.  He  begs 
you  not  to  —  not  to  make  Mrs.  Hurd  hope  too  much.  He  himself 
believes  there  is  no  hope,  and  it  is  not  kind." 

"  Are  you  and  he  like  all  the  rest,"  cried  ]\Iarcella,  her  passion 
breaking  out  again,  "only  eager  to  have  blood  for  blood?" 

Mai'y  waited  an  instant. 

"  It  has  almost  broken  Charlie's  heart,"  she  said  at  last ;  "  but 
he  thinks  it  was  murder,  and  that  Hurd  will  pay  the  penalty ; 
nay,  more  "  —  she  spoke  with  a  kind  of  I'eligious  awe  in  her  gentle 
voice  —  "that  he  ought  to  be  glad  to  pay  it.  He  believes  it  to  be- 
God's  will,  and  I  have  heard  him  say  that  he  would  even  have 
executions  in  public  again  —  under  stricter  regulations  of  course 
—  that  we  may  not  escape,  as  we  always  do  if  we  can  —  from  all 
sight  and  thought  of  God's  justice  and  God's  punishments." 

Marcella  shuddered  and  rose.  She  almost  threw  Mary's  hand 
away  from  her. 

"  Tell  your  brother  from  me,  Mary,"  she  said,  "  that  his  God  is 
to  me  just  a  constable  in  the  service  of  the  English  game-laws  !     If 


258  MARCELLA  book  ii 

He  is  such  a  one,  I  at  least  will  fling  my  Everlasting  No  at  him 
while  I  live." 

And  she  swept  from  the  room,  leaving  Mary  aghast. 

Meanwhile  there  was  consternation  and  wrath  at  Maxwell 
Court,  where  Aldous,  on  his  return  from  Mellor,  had  first  of  all 
given  his  great-aunt  the  news  of  the  coroner's  verdict,  and  had 
then  gone  on  to  break  to  her  the  putting-off  of  the  marriage.  His 
championship  of  Marcella  in  the  matter,  and  his  disavowal  of  all 
grievance  were  so  quiet  and  decided,  that  iMiss  Raeburn  had  been 
only  able  to  allow  herself  a  very  modified  strain  of  comment  and 
remonstrance,  so  long  as  he  was  still  there  to  listen.  But  she  was 
all  the  more  outspoken  when  he  was  gone,  and  Lady  Winterbourne 
was  sitting  with  her.  Lady  Winterbourne,  who  was  at  home  alone, 
while  her  husband  was  with  a  married  daughter  on  the  Riviera, 
had  come  over  to  dine  tete-a-tete  with  her  friend,  finding  it  impossi- 
ble to  remain  solitary  while  so  much  was  happening. 

"  Well,  my  dear,"  said  Miss  Raeburn,  shortly,  as  her  guest 
entered  the  room,  "  I  may  as  well  tell  you  at  once  that  Aldous's 
marriage  is  put  off." 

"  Put  off  !  "  exclaimed  Lady  Winterbourne,  bewildered.  "  Why 
it  was  only  Thursday  that  I  was  discussing  it  all  with  Marcella, 
and  she  told  me  everything  was  settled." 

"  Thursday!  —  I  dare  say!  "  said  Miss  Raeburn,  stitching  away 
with  fiery  energy,  "  but  since  then  a  poacher  has  murdered  one  of 
our  gamekeepers,  which  makes  all  the  difference." 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Agneta?  " 

"  What  I  say,  my  dear.  The  poacher  was  Marcella's  friend,  and 
she  cannot  now  distract  her  mind  from  him  sufficiently  to  marry 
Aldous,  though  every  plan  he  has  in  the  world  will  be  upset  by 
her  proceedings.  And  as  for  his  election,  you  may  depend  upon 
it  she  will  never  ask  or  know  whether  he  gets  in  next  Monday 
or  no.  That  goes  without  saying.  She  is  meanwhile  absorbed 
with  the  poacher's  defence,  Mr.  Wharton,  of  course,  conducting  it. 
This  is  your  modernr  young  woman,  my  dear — typical,  I  should 
think." 

Miss  Raeburn  turned  her  buttonhole  in  fine  style,  and  at  light- 
ning speed,  to  show  the  coolness  of  her  mind,  then  with  a  rattling 
of  all  her  lockets,  looked  up  and  waited  for  Lady  Winterbourne's 
reflections. 

"  She  has  often  talked  to  me  of  these  people  —  the  Hurds,"  said 
Lady  Winterbourne,  slowly.  "  She  has  always  made  special  friends 
with  them.  Don't  you  remember  she  told  us  about  them  that  day 
she  first  came  back  to  lunch  ?  " 

"Of  course  I  remember!     That  day  she  lectured  Maxwell,  at 


CHAP.  XI  MARCELLA  259 

first  sight,  oil  his  duties.  She  began  well.  As  for  these  people," 
said  Miss  Raeburn,  more  slowly,  "  one  is,  of  course,  sorry  for  the 
wife  and  children,  though  I  am  a  good  deal  sorrier  for  Mrs.  AVestall, 
and  poor,  poor  Mrs.  Dynes.  The  whole  affair  has  so  upset  Max- 
well and  me,  we  have  hardly  been  able  to  eat  or  sleep  since.  I 
thought  it  made  Maxwell  look  dreadfully  old  tliis  morning,  and 
with  all  that  he  has  got  before  him  too !  I  shall  insist  on  sending 
for  Clarke  to-morrow  morning  if  he  does  not  have  a  better  night. 
And  now  this  postponement  will  be  one  more  trouble  —  all  the 
engagements  to  alter,  and  the  invitations.     Really !  that  girl." 

And  Miss  Raeburn  broke  oft'  short,  feeling  simply  that  the  words 
which  were  allowed  to  a  well-bred  person  were  wholly  inadequate 
to  her  state  of  mind. 

"But  if  she  feels  it  —  as  you  or  I  might  feel  such  a  thing  about 
some  one  we  knew  or  cared  for,  Agneta?" 

"  How  can  she  feel  it  like  that  ? "  cried  Miss  Raeburn,  exas- 
perated. "  How  can  she  know  any  one  of  —  of  that  class  well 
enough?  It  is  not  seemly,  I  tell  you,  Adelaide,  and  I  don't  believe 
it  is  sincere.  It's  just  done  to  make  herself  conspicuous,  and  show 
her  power  over  Aldous.  For  other  reasons  too,  if  the  truth  were 
known ! " 

Miss  Raeburn  turned  over  the  shirt  she  was  making  for  some 
charitable  society  and  drew  out  some  tacking  threads  with  a  loud 
noise  which  relieved  her.  Lady  Winterbourne's  old  and  delicate 
cheek  had  flushed. 

"  I'm  sure  it's  sincere,"  she  said  with  emphasis.  "  Do  you  mean 
to  say,  Agneta,  that  one  can't  sympathise,  in  such  an  awful  thing, 
with  people  of  anotli^r  class,  as  one  would  with  one's  own  flesh 
and  blood?" 

Miss  Raeburn  winced.  She  felt  for  a  moment  the  pressure  of 
a  democratic  world  —  a  hated,  formidable  world  —  through  her 
friend's  question.     Then  she  stood  to  her  guns. 

"  I  dare  say  you'll  think  it  sounds  bad,"  she  said  stoutly ;  "  but 
in  my  young  days  it  would  have  been  thought  a  piece  of  posing  — 
of  sentimentalism  —  something  indecorous  and  unfitting  —  if  a 
girl  had  put  herself  in  such  a  position.  Marcella  oiujht  to  be 
absorbed  in  her  marriage ;  that  is  the  natural  thing.  How  Mrs. 
Boyce  can  allow  her  to  mix  herself  with  such  things  as  this  murder 
—  to  live  in  that  cottage,  as  I  hear  she  has  been  doing,  passes  my 
comprehension." 

"  You  mean,"  said  Lady  Winterbourne,  dreamily,  "  that  if  one 
had  been  very  fond  of  one's  maid,  and  she  died,  one  wouldn't  put 
on  mourning  for  her.     ]\Iarcella  would." 

"  I  dare  say,"  said  Miss  Raeburn,  snai^pishly.  "  She  is  capable 
of  anything  far-fetched  and  theatrical." 


260  MARCELLA  book  ii 

The  door  opened  and  Halliu  came  in.  He  liad  been  suffering  of 
late,  and  much  confined  to  the  house.  But  the  news  of  the  murder 
had  made  a  deep  and  painful  impression  upon  him,  and  he  had 
been  eagerly  acquainting  himself  with  the  facts.  Miss  Raeburu, 
whose  kindness  ran  with  unceasing  flow  along  the  channels  she 
allowed  it,  was  greatlj'  attached  to  him  in  spite  of  his  views,  and 
she  now  threw  herself  upon  him  for  sympathy  in  the  matter  of 
the  wedding.  In  any  grievance  that  concerned  Aldous  she  counted 
upon  him,  and  her  shrewd  eyes  had  plainly  perceived  that  he  had 
made  no  great  friendship  with  Marcella. 

"I  am  very  sorry  for  Aldous,"  he  said  at  once;  "  but  I  under- 
stand her  perfectly.     So  does  Aldous." 

Miss  Raeburn  was  angrily  silent.  But  when  Lord  Maxwell,  who 
had  been  talking  with  Aldous,  came  in,  he  proved,  to  her  final  dis- 
comfiture, to  be  very  much  of  the  same  opinion. 

"  My  dear,"  he  said  wearily  as  he  dropped  into  his  chair,  his  old 
face  grey  and  pinched,  "this  thing  is  too  terrible  —  the  number  of 
widows  and  orphans  that  night's  work  will  make  before  the  end 
breaks  my  heart  to  think  of.  It  will  be  a  relief  not  to  have  to 
consider  festivities  while  these  men  are  actually  before  the  courts. 
What  I  am  anxious  about  is  that  Marcella  should  not  make  her- 
self ill  with  excitement.  The  man  she  is  interested  in  will  be 
hung,  must  be  hung ;  and  with  her  somewhat  volatile,  impulsive 
nature  —  " 

He  spoke  wdth  old-fashioned  discretion  and  measure.  Then 
quickly  he  pulled  himself  up,  and,  with  some  trivial  question  or 
other,  offered  his  arm  to  Lady  Winterboui'ne,  for  Aldous  had  just 
come  in,  and  dinner  was  ready. 


CHAPTER  XII 

Nearly  three  weeks  passed — short  flashing  weeks,  crowded 
with  agitations,  inward  or  outward,  for  all  the  persons  of  this 
story. 

After  the  enquiry  before  the  magistrates — conducted,  as  she 
passionately  thought,  with  the  most  marked  animus  on  the  part 
of  the  bench  and  police  towards  the  prisoners  —  had  resulted  in 
the  committal  for  trial  of  Hurd  and  his  five  companions,  Mar- 
cella wrote  Aldous  Raeburn  a  letter  which  hurt  him  sorely. 

"  Don't  come  over  to  see  me  for  a  little  while,"  it  ran.  "  My 
mind  is  all  given  over  to  feelings  which  must  seem  to  you  — 
which,  I  know,  do  seem  to  you  —  unreasonable  and  unjust.  But 
they  are  my  life,  and  when  they  are  criticised,  or  even  treated 
coldly,  I  cannot  bear  it.     When  you  are  not  there  to  argue  with,  I 


CHAP,   xii  MARCELLA  261 

can  believe,  most  sincerely,  that  you  have  a  right  to  see  this  mat- 
ter as  you  do,  and  that  it  is  monstrous  of  me  to  expect  you  to 
yield  to  me  entii-ely  in  a  thing  that  concerns  your  sense  of  public 
duty.  But  don't  come  now  —  not  before  the  trial.  I  will  appeal 
to  you  if  I  think  you  can  help  me.  I  ktwtv  you  will  if  you  can. 
Mr.  AVharton  keeps  me  informed  of  everything.  I  enclose  his  last 
two  letters,  which  will  show  you  the  line  he  means  to  take  up  with 
regard  to  some  of  the  evidence." 

Aldous's  reply  cost  him  a  prodigal  amount  of  pain  and  diffi- 
culty. 

"  I  will  do  anything  in  the  world  to  make  these  days  less  of  a  bur- 
den to  you.  You  can  hardly  imagine  that  it  is  not  grievous  to  me 
to  think  of  any  trouble  of  yours  as  being  made  worse  by  my  being 
with  j^ou.  But  still  I  understand.  One  thing  only  I  ask  —  that 
you  should  not  imagine  the  difference  between  us  greater  than  it 
is.  The  two  letters  you  enclose  have  given  me  much  to  ponder. 
Tf  only  the  course  of  the  trial  enables  me  with  an  honest  heart  to 
thi'ow  myself  into  your  crusade  of  mercy,  with  what  joy  shall  I 
come  and  ask  you  to  lead  me,  and  to  forgive  my  own  slower  sense 
and  pity  ! 

"  I  should  like  you  to  know  that  Hallin  is  very  much  inclined 
to  agree  with  you,  to  think  that  the  whole  affair  was  a  'scrim- 
mage,' and  that  Hurd  at  least  ought  to  be  reprieved.  He  would 
have  come  to  talk  it  over  with  you  himself,  but  that  Clarke  forbids 
him  anything  that  interests  or  excites  him  for  the  present.  He 
has  been  very  ill  and  suffering  for  the  last  fortnight,  and,  as  you 
know,  when  these  attacks  come  on  we  try  to  keep  everything 
from  him  that  could  pain  or  agitate  him.  But  I  see  that  tliis 
whole  affair  is  very  much  on  his  mind,  in  spite  of  my  efforts. 

"...  Oh,  my  darling!  I  am  writing  late  at  night,  with  your 
letter  open  before  me  and  your  picture  close  to  my  hand.  So 
many  things  rise  in  my  mind  to  say  to  you.  There  will  come  a 
time  —  there  must!  —  when  I  may  pour  them  all  out.  Meanwhile, 
anud  all  jars  and  frets,  remember  this,  that  I  have  loved  you  bet- 
ter each  day  since  first  we  met. 

"  I  will  not  conse  to  Mellor  then  for  a  little  while.  i\Iy  election, 
little  heart  as  I  have  for  it,  will  fill  up  the  week.  The  nomination- 
day  is  fixed  for  Thursday  and  the  polling  for  ^Monday." 

Marcella  read  the  letter  with  a  confusion  of  feeling  so  great  as 
to  be  in  itself  monstrous  and  demoralising.  Was  she  never  to  be 
simple,  to  see  her  way  clearly  again  ? 

As  for  him,  as  he  rode  about  the  lanes  and  beechwoods  in  the 
days  that  followed,  alone  often  with  that  nature  for  which  all  such 
temperaments  as  Aldous  Raeburn's  have  so  secret  and  so  observant 
an  affection,  he  was  perpetually  occupied  with  this  difficulty  which 


262  MARCELLA  book  ii 

had  arisen  between  Marcella  and  himself,  turning  it  over  and  over 
in  the  quiet  of  the  morning,  before  the  turmoil  of  the  day  began. 

He  had  followed  the  whole  case  before  the  magistrates  with  the 
most  scrupulous  "care.  And  since  then,  he  had  twice  run  across 
the  Widrington  solicitor  for  the  defence,  who  was  now  instructing 
Wharton.  This  man,  although  a  strong  Radical,  and  employed 
generally  by  his  own  side,  saw  no  objection  at  all  to  letting  Lord 
Maxwell's  heii-  and  representative  iinderstand  how  in  his  opinion 
the  case  w^as  going.  Aldous  Raeburn  was  a  person  whom  every- 
body respected ;  confidences  were  safe  with  him ;  and  he  was 
himself  deeply  interested  in  the  affair.  The  Raeburns  being  the 
Raeburns,  with  all  that  that  implied  for  smaller  people  in  Brook- 
shire,  little  Mr.  Burridge  was  aware  of  no  reason  w^hatever  why 
Westall's  employers  should  not  know  that,  although  Mr.  Wharton 
was  working  up  the  defence  with  an  energy  and  ability  which 
set  Burridge  marvelling,  it  was  still  his,  Burridge's  opinion,  that 
everything  that  could  be  advanced  would  be  wholly  unavailing 
with  the  jury;  that  the  evidence,  as  it  came  into  final  shape,  looked 
worse  for  Hurd  rather  than  better ;  and  that  the  only  hope  for  the 
man  lay  iu  the  after-movement  for  rej^rieve  which  can  always  be 
got  up  in  a  game-preserving  case. 

"  And  is  as  a  rule  political  and  anti-landlord,"  thought  Aldous, 
on  one  of  these  mornings,  as  he  rode  along  the  edge  of  the  down. 
He  foresaw  exactly  what  would  happen.  As  he  envisaged  the 
immediate  future,  he  saw  one  figure  as  the  centre  of  it  —  not  Mar- 
cella, but  Wharton!  Wharton  was  defending,  Wharton  would 
organise  the  petition,  W^harton  would  apply  for  his  own  support 
and  his  grandfather's,  through  Marcella.  To  Wharton  would 
belong  not  only  the  popular  kudos  of  the  matter,  but  much  more, 
and  above  all,  Marcella's  gratitude. 

Aldous  pulled  up  liis  horse  au  instant,  recognising  that  spot  in 
the  road,  that  downward  stretching  glade  among  the  beeches, 
where  he  had  asked  Marcella  to  be  his  wife.  The  pale  February 
sunlight  was  spreading  from  his  left  hand  through  the  bare  grey 
trunks,  and  over  the  distant  shoulders  of  the  woods,  far  into  the 
white  and  purple  of  the  chalk  plain.  Sounds  of  labour  came  from 
the  distant  fields ;  sounds  of  winter  birds  from  the  branches  round 
him.  The  place,  the  time,  raised  in  him  all  the  intensest  powers 
of  consciousness.  He  saw  himself  as  the  man  standing  midway  in 
everything — speculation,  politics,  sympathies  —  as  the  perennially 
ineffective  and,  as  it  seemed  to  his  morbid  mood,  the  perennially 
defeated  type,  beside  the  Whartons  of  this  world.  Wharton ! 
He  knew  him  —  had  read  him  long  ago  —  read  him  afresh  of  late. 
Raeburn's  lip  showed  the  contempt,  the  bitterness  which  the 
philosopher  could  not  repress,  showed  also  the  humiliation  of  the 


CHAP.  XII  MARCELLA  2G3 

lover.  Here  was  he,  banished  from  jNIarcella  ;  here  was  Wharton, 
in  possession  of  her  mind  and  sympathies,  busily  forging  a  link  — 

"  It  shall  be  broken ! "  said  Raeburu  to  himself  with  a  sudden 
fierce  concentration  of  will.  "  So  much  I  will  claim  —  and  en- 
force." - 

But  not  now,  nothing  now,  but  patience,  delicacy,  prudence.  He 
gathered  himself  together  with  a  long  breath,  and  went  his  way. 

For  the  rest,  the  clash  of  motives  and  affections  he  felt  and  fore- 
saw in  this  matter  of  the  Disley  murders,  became  day  by  day  more 
harassing.  The  moral  debate  was  strenuous  enough.  The  murders 
had  roused  all  the  humane  and  ethical  instincts,  which  were  in 
fact  the  man,  to  such  a  point  that  they  pursued  him  constantly,  in 
the  pauses  of  his  crowded  days,  like  avenging  Erinnyes.  Hallin's 
remark  that  "  game-presei'ving  creates  crime  "  left  him  no  peace. 
Intellectually  he  argued  it,  and  on  the  whole  rejected  it ;  morally, 
and  in  feeling,  it  scourged  him.  He  had  suffered  all  his  mature 
life  under  a  too  painful  and  scrupulous  sense  that  he,  more  than 
other  men,  was  called  to  be  his  brother's  keeper.  It  was  natural 
that,  during  these  exhausting  days,  the  fierce  death  on  Westall's 
rugged  face,  the  piteous  agony  in  Dynes's  young  eyes  and  limbs, 
should  haunt  him,  should  make  his  landlord's  place  and  responsi- 
bility often  mere  ashes  and  bitterness. 

But,  as  Marcella  had  been  obliged  to  perceive,  he  drew  the 
sharpest  line  between  the  bearings  of  this  ghastly  business  on  his 
own  private  life  and  action,  and  its  relation  to  public  order.  That 
the  gamekeepers  destroyed  were  his  servants,  or  practically  his 
servants,  made  no  difference  to  him  whatever  in  his  estimate  of 
the  crime  itself.  If  the  circumstances  had  been  such  that  he  could 
honestly  have  held  Hurd  not  to  be  a  nmrderer,  no  employer's 
interest,  no  landlord's  desire  for  vengeance,  would  have  stood  in 
his  way.  On  the  other  hand,  believing,  as  he  emphatically  did, 
that  Hurd's  slaying  of  Westall  had  been  of  a  kind  more  deliberate 
and  less  capable  of  excuse  than  most  murders,  he  would  have  held 
it  a  piece  of  moral  cowardice  to  allow  his  own  qualms  and  com- 
punctions as  to  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  game-preserving  to  inter- 
fere with  a  duty  to  justice  and  society. 

Ay!  and  something  infinitely  dearer  to  him  than  his  own 
qualms  and  compunctions. 

HaUin,  who  watched  the  whole  debate  in  his  friend  day  by  day, 
was  conscious  that  he  had  never  seen  Aldous  more  himself,  in  spite 
of  trouble  of  mind ;  more  "  in  character,"  so  to  speak,  than  at  this 
moment.  Spii'itual  dignity  of  mind  and  temper,  blended  with  a 
painful  personal  humility,  and  interfused  with  aU  —  determining 
all  —  elements  of  judgment,  subtleties,  prejudices,  modes  of  look- 


264  MARCELLA  book  ii 

ing  at  things,  for  which  he  was  hardly  responsible,  so  deeply  in- 
grained were  they  by  inheritance  and  custom.  More  than  this : 
did  not  the  ultimate  explanation  of  the  whole  attitude  of  the 
man  lie  in  the  slow  but  irresistible  revolt  of  a  strong  individuality 
against  the  passion  which  had  for  a  time  suppressed  it?  The 
truth  of  certain  moral  .relations  may  be  for  a  time  obscured  and 
distorted;  none  the  less,  reality  wins  the  day.     So  Hallin  read  it. 

Meanwhile,  during  days  when  both  for  Aldous  and  Wharton  the 
claims  of  a  bustling,  shouting  public,  which  must  be  canvassed, 
shaken  hands  with,  and  spoken  to,  and  the  constant  alternations  of 
business  meetings,  committee-rooms  and  the  rest,  made  it  impos- 
sible, after  all,  for  either  man  to  spend  more  than  the  odds  and 
ends  of  thought  upon  anything  outside  the  clatter  of  politics, 
Marcella  had  been  living  a  life  of  intense  and  monotonous  feeling, 
shut  up  almost  within  the  walls  of  a  tiny  cottage,  hanging  over 
sick-beds,  and  thrilling  to  each  pulse  of  anguish  as  it  beat  in  the 
miserable  beings  she  tended. 

Tiie  marriage  of  the  season,  with  all  its  accompanying  festivi- 
ties and  jubilations,  had  not  been  put  off  for  seven  weeks  —  till 
aftei'  Easter  —  without  arousing  a  storm  of  critical  astonishment 
both  in  village  and  county.  And  when  the  reason  was  known  — 
that  it  was  because  Miss  Boyce  had  taken  the  Disley  murder  so 
desperately  to  heart,  that  luitil  the  whole  affair  was  over,  and  the 
men  either  executed  or  reprieved,  she  could  spare  no  thought  to 
wedding  clothes  or  cates  —  there  was  curiously  little  sympathy 
with  Marcella.  Most  of  her  own  class  thought  it  a  piece  of 
posing,  if  they  did  not  say  so  as  frankly  as  Miss  Raebiirn  —  some- 
thing done  for  self-advertisement  and  to  advance  anti-social  opin- 
ions; while  the  Mellor  cottagers,  with  the  instinctive  English  recoil 
from  any  touch  of  sentiment  not,  so  to  speak,  in  the  bargain, 
gossiped  and  joked  about  it  freely. 

"  She  can't  be  very  fond  o'  'im,  not  of  Muster  Raeburn,  she 
can't,"  said  old  Patton,  delivering  himself  as  he  sat  leaning  on  his 
stick  at  his  open  door,  while  his  wife  and  another  woman  or  two 
chattered  inside.  "  Not  what  I'd  call  lover-y.  She  don't  want  to 
run  in  harness,  she  don't,  no  sooner  than  she  need.  She's  a  peert 
filly  is  Miss  Boyce." 

"  I've  been  a-waitin',  an'  a-waitin',"  said  his  wife,  with  her  gentle 
sigh,  "to  hear  summat  o'  that  new  straw-plaitin'  she  talk  about. 
But  nary  a  word.     They  do  say  as  it's  give  up  althegither." 

"No,  she's  took  up  wi'  nursin'  Minta  Hurd  —  wonderful  took 
up,"  said  another  woman.  "  They  do  say  as  Ann  JNIuUins  can't 
abear  her.  When  she's  there  nobody  can  open  their  mouth. 
When  that  kind  o'  thing  happens  in  the  fambly  it's  bad  enoof 


CHAP.  XII  MARCELLA  2G5 

without  havin'  a  lady  trailin'  about  you  all  day  long,  so  that  you 
have  to  be  mindiu'  yersel',  an'  tliinkin'  about  giviu'  her  a  cheer, 
an'  the  like." 

One  day  in  the  dusk,  more  than  a  fortnight  after  the  inquest, 
Marcella,  coming  from  the  Hurds'  cottage,  overtook  Mrs.  Jellison, 
who  was  going  home  after  spending  the  afternoon  with  her 
daughter. 

Hitherto  Marcella  had  held  aloof  from  Isabella  Westall  and  her 
relations,  mainly,  to  do  her  justice,  from  fear  lest  she  ]night  some- 
how hurt  or  offend  them.  She  had  been  to  see  Charlie  Dynes's 
mother,  but  she  had  only  brought  herself  to  send  a  message  of 
sympathy  through  Mary  Harden  to  the  keeper's  widow. 

Mrs.  Jellison  looked  at  her  askance  with  her  old  wild  eyes  as 
Marcella  came  up  with  her. 

"  Oh,  she's  puddlin'  along,"  she  said  in  answer  to  Marcella's  en- 
quiry, using  a  word  very  familiar  in  the  village.  "  She'll  not  do 
herself  a  mischief  while  there's  Nurse  Ellen  an'  me  to  watch  her 
like  a  pair  o'  cats.  She's  dreadful  upset,  is  Isabella  —  shouldn't 
ha'  thought  it  of  her.  That  fust  day  "  —  a  cloud  darkened  the 
carious,  dreamy  face — "uo,  I'm  not  a-goin'  to  think  about  that 
fust  day,  I'm  not,  'tain't  a  ha'porth  o'  good,"  she  added  resolutely; 
"  but  she  was  all  right  when  they'd  let  her  get  'iin  'ome,  and  wash 
an'  settle  'im,  an'  put  'im  comfortable  like  in  his  coffin.  He  wor  a 
big  man,  miss,  when  he  wor  laid  out !  Searle,  as  made  the  coffin, 
told  her  as  ee  'adn't  made  one  such  an  extry  size  since  old  Harry 
Flood,  the  blacksmith,  fifteen  year  ago.  Ee'd  soon  a  done  for  Jim 
Hurd,  if  it  'ad  been  fists  o'  both  sides.  But  guns  is  things  as  yer 
can't  reckon  on." 

"  Why  didn't  he  let  Hurd  alone,"  said  MarceUa,  sadly,  "  and 
prosecute  him  next  day?  It's  attacking  men  when  their  blood  is 
up  that  brings  these  awful  things  about." 

"  Wal,  I  don't  see  that,"  said  Mrs.  Jellison,  pugnaciously ;  "  he 
wor  paid  to  do  't  —  an'  he  had  the  law  on  his  side.  'Ow's  she  ?  " 
she  said,  lowering  her  voice  and  jerking  her  thumb  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Hurds'  cottage. 

"  She's  very  ill,"  replied  Marcella,  with  a  contraction  of  the 
brow.  "  Dr.  Clarke  says  she  ought  to  stay  in  bed,  but  of  course 
she  won't." 

"They're  a-goin'  to  try  'im  Thursday?"  said  Mrs.  Jellison, 
enquiringly. 

"  Yes." 

"An'  Muster  Wharton  be  a  goiu'  to  defend  'im.  Muster  Whar- 
ton may  be  cliver,  ee  may  —  they  do  say  as.  ee  can  see  the  grass 
growin',  ee's  that  knowin'  —  but  ee'll  not  get  Jim  Hurd  off;  there's 
nobody  in  the  village  as  b'lieves  for  a  moment  as  'ow  he  will. 


266  MARCELLA  book  ii 

They'll  best  'im.  Lor'  bless  yer,  they'll  best  'im.  I  was  a-sayin' 
it  to  Isabella  this  afternoon  —  ee'll  not  save  'is  neck,  don't  you  be 
afeard." 

Marcella  drew  herself  up  with  a  shiver  of  repulsion. 

"  Will  it  mend  your  daughter's  grief  to  see  another  woman's 
heart  broken  ?  Don't  you  suppose  it  might  bring  her  some  com- 
fort, Mrs.  Jellison,  if  she  were  to  try  and  forgive  that  poor  wretch? 
She  might  remember  that  her  husband  gave  him  provocation,  and 
that  anyway,  if  his  life  is  spared,  his  punishment  and  their  misery 
will  be  heavy  enough!  " 

"  Oh,  Lor'  no  !  "  said  Mrs.  Jellison,  composedly.  "  She  don't  want 
to  be  forgivin'  of  'im.  Mr.  Harden  ee  come  talkin'  to  'er,  but  she 
isn't  one  o'  that  sort,  isn't  Isabella.  I'm  sartin  sure  she'll  be  better 
in  'erself  when  they've  put  'im  out  o'  the  way.  It  makes  her  all 
ov  a  fever  to  think  of  Muster  Wharton  gettin'  'im  off.  I  don't 
bear  Jim  Hurd  no  pertickler  malice.  Isabella  may  talk  herself 
black  i'  the  face,  but  she  and  Johnnie  '11  have  to  come  'ome  and 
Hve  along  o'  me,  whatever  she  may  say.  She  can't  stay  in  that 
cottage,  cos  they'll  be  wantin'  it  for  another  keeper.  Lord  Max- 
well ee's  givin'  her  a  fine  pension,  my  word  ee  is !  an'  says  ee'll 
look  after  Johnnie.  And  what  with  my  bit  airnins  —  we'll  do, 
yer  know,  miss  — we'll  do !  " 

The  old  woman  looked  up  with  a  nod,  her  green  eyes  sparkling 
with  the  queer  inhuman  light  that  belonged  to  them. 

Marcella  could  not  bring  herself  to  say  good-night  to  her,  and 
was  hurrying  on  without  a  word,  when  Mrs.  Jellison  stopped  her. 

"  An'  'ow  about  that  straw-plaitin',  miss?  "  she  said  slyly. 

"I  have  had  to  put  it  on  one  side  for  a  bit,"  said  Marcellav.coldly, 
hating  the  woman's  society.  "  I  have  had  my  hands  full  and  Lady 
Winterbourne  has  been  away,  but  ^e  shall,  of  course,  take  it  up 
again  later." 

She  walked  away  quickly,  and  Mrs.  Jellison  hobbled  after  her, 
grinning  to  herself  every  now  and  then  as  she  caught  the  straight, 
tall  figure  against  the  red  evening  sky. 

"  I'll  go  in  ter  town  termorrer,"  she  thought,  "  an'  have  a  crack  wi' 
Jimmy  Gedge  ;  ee  needn't  be  afeard  for  'is  livin'.  An'  them  great 
fules  as  ha'  bin  runnin'  in  a  string  arter  'er,  an'  cacklin'  about 
their  eighteen-pence  a  score,  as  I've  told  'em  times,  I'll  eat  my 
apron  the  fust  week  as  iver  they  get  it.  I  don't  hold  wi'  ladies 
—  no,  nor  passons  neither  —  not  when  it  comes  to  meddlm'  wi' 
your  wittles,  an'  dictatin'  to  yer  about  forgivin'  them  as  ha'  got 
the  better  ov  yer.  That  young  lady  there,  what  do  she  matter  ? 
That  sort's  alius  gaddin'  about  ?  What'll  she  keer  about  us  when 
she's  got  'er  fine  husband?  Here  o'  Saturday,  gone  o'  Monday  — 
that's  what  she  is.     Now  Jimmy  Gedge,  yer  kin  alius  count  on  'im. 


CHAP.  XII  MARCELLA  267 

Thirty-six  year  ee  ha'  set  there  in  that  'ere  shop,  and  I  guess  ee'U 
set  there  till  they  call  'ini  ter  kingdom  come.  Ee's  a  cheatiii', 
sweatiu',  greedy  old  skinflint  is  Jimmy  Gedge ;  but  when  yer 
wants  'im  yer  kin  find  'im." 

Marcella  hurried  home ;  she  was  expecting  a  letter  from  Wharton, 
the  third  within  a  week.  She  had  not  set  eyes  on  him  since  they 
had  met  that  first  morning  in  the  drive,  and  it  was  plain  to  her 
that  he  was  as  unwilling  as  she  was  that  there  should  be  any  meet- 
ing between  them.  Since  the  moment  of  his  taking  up  the  case, 
in  spite  of  the  pressure  of  innumerable  engagements,  he  had  found 
time  to  send  her,  almost  daily,  sheets  covered  with  his  small  even 
writing,  in  which  every  detail  and  prospect  of  the  legal  situation, 
so  far  as  it  concerned  James  Hurd,  were  noted  and  criticised  with 
a  shrewdness  and  fulness  which  never  wavered,  and  never  lost  for 
a  moment  the  professional  note. 

"  Dear  Miss  Boyce "  —  the  letters  began  —  leading  up  to  a 
"  You.rs  faithfully,"  which  Marcella  read  as  carefully  as  the  rest. 
Often,  as  she  turned  them  over,  she  asked  herself  whether  that 
scene  in  the  library  had  not  been  a  mere  delusion  of  the  brain, 
whether  the  man  whose  wild  words  and  act  had  burnt  them- 
selves into  her  life  could  possibly  be  writing  her  these  letters, 
in  this  key,  without  a  reference,  without  an  allusion.  Every  day, 
as  she  opened  them,  she  looked  them  through  quietly  with  a 
shaking  pulse ;  every  day  she  found  hei-self  proudly  able  to  hand 
them  on  to  her  mother,  with  the  satisfaction  of  one  who  has 
nothing  to  conceal,  whatever  the  rest  of  the  w^orld  may  suspect. 
He  was  certainly  doing  his  best  to  replace  their  friendship  on  that 
level  of  high  comradeship  in  ideas  and  causes  which,  as  she  told 
herself,  it  had  once  occupied.  His  own  wanton  aggression  and  her 
weakness  had  toppled  it  down  thence,  and  brought  it  to  ruin.  She 
could  never  speak  to  him,  never  know  him  again  till  it  was  re- 
established. Still  his  letters  galled  her.  He  assumed,  she  supposed, 
that  such  a  thing  could  happen,  and  nothing  more  be  said  about  it? 
How  little  he  knew  her,  or  what  she  had  in  her  mind ! 

Now,  as  she  walked  along,  wrapped  in  her  plaid  cape,  her 
thought  was  one  long  tumultuous  succession  of  painful  or  pas- 
sionate images,  interrupted  none  the  less  at  times  by  those  curious 
self-observing  pauses  of  which  she  had  always  been  capable.  She 
had  been  sitting  for  hours  beside  Mrs.  Hurd,  with  little  Willie 
upon  her  knees.  The  mother,  always  anpemic  and  consumptive, 
was  by  now  prostrate,  the  prey  of  a  long-drawn  agony,  peopled  by 
visions  of  Jim  alone  and  in  prison — Jim  on  the  scaffold  with  the 
white  cap  over  his  eyes — Jim  in  the  prison  coffin  —  which  would 
rouse  her  shrieking  from  dreams  which  were  the  rending  asunder 


268  MARCELLA  book  ii 

of  soul  and  body.  Minta  Kurd's  love  for  the  unhappy  being  who 
had  brought  her  to  this  pass  had  been  infinitely  maternal.  There 
had  been  a  boundless  pity  in  it,  and  the  secret  pride  of  a  soul, 
which,  humble  and  modest  towards  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  yet 
knew  itself  to  be  the  breath  and  sustenance,  the  indispensable  aid 
of  one  other  soul  in  the  universe,  and  gloried  accordingly.  To  be 
cut  off  now  from  all  ministration,  all  comforting — to  have  to  lie 
there  like  a  log,  imagining  the  moment  when  the  neighbours 
should  come  in  and  say,  "It  is  all  over — they  have  broken  his 
neck  —  and  buried  him"  —  it  was  a  doom  beyond  all  even  that 
her  timid  pessimist  heart  had  ever  dreamed.  She  had  already 
seen  him  twice  in  prison,  and  she  knew  that  she  would  see  him 
again.  She  was  to  go  on  Monday,  Miss  Boyce  said,  before  the 
trial  began,  and  after  —  if  they  brought  him  in  guilty — they 
would  let  her  say  good-bye.  She  was  always  thirsting  to  see  him. 
But  when  she  went,  the  prison  surroundings  paralysed  her.  Both 
she  and  Hurd  felt  themselves  caught  in  the  wheels  of  a  great 
relentless  machine,  of  which  the  workings  filled  them  with  a 
voiceless  terror.  He  talked  to  her  spasmodically  of  the  most 
incongruous  things  —  breaking  out  sometimes  with  a  glittering 
eye  into  a  string  of  instances  bearing  on  Westall's  bullying  and 
tyrannous  ways.  He  told  her  to  return  the  books  Miss  Boyce 
had  lent  him,  but  when  asked  if  he  would  like  to  see  Marcella  he 
shrank  and  said  no.  Mr.  Wharton  was  "doin'  capital"  for  him; 
but  she  wasn't  to  count  on  his  getting  off.  And  he  didn't  know 
that  he  wanted  to,  neither.  Once  she  took  VViUie  to  see  him  ;  the 
child  nearly  died  of  the  journey;  and  the  father,  "though,  any  one 
can  see,  miss,  he's  just  sick  for  'im,"  would  not  hear  of  his  coming 
again.  Sometimes  he  would  hardly  kiss  her  at  parting ;  he  sat  on 
his  chair,  with  his  great  head  drooped  forward  over  his  red  hands, 
lost  in  a  kind  of  animal  lethargy.  Westall's  name  always  roused 
him.  Hate  still  survived.  But  it  made  her  life  faint  within  her 
to  talk  of  the  murdered  man — wherein  she  showed  her  lack  of  the 
usual  peasant's  realism  and  curiosity  in  the  presence  of  facts  of 
blood  and  violence.  When  she  was  told  it  was  time  for  her  to  go, 
and  the  heavy  door  was  locked  behind  her,  the  poor  creature,  terri- 
fied at  the  warder  and  the  bare  prison  silences,  would  hurry  away 
as  though  the  heavy  hand  of  this  awful  Justice  were  laid  upon  her 
too,  torn  by  the  thought  of  him  she  left  behind,  and  by  the  remem- 
brance that  he  had  only  kissed  her  once,  and  yet  imi^elled  by  mere 
physical  instinct  towards  the  relief  of  Ann  Mullins's  rough  face 
waiting  for  her  —  of  the  outer  air  and  the  free  heaven. 

As  for  Willie,  he  was  fast  dwindling.  Another  week  or  two  — 
the  doctor  said  —  no  more.  He  lay  on  Marcella's  knee  on  a  pillow, 
wasted  to  an    infant's  weight,  panting   and   staring  with   those 


CHAP,  xn  MARCELLA  269 

strange  blue  eyes,  but  always  patient,  always  struggling  to  say  his 
painful  "  thank  you "  when  she  fed  him  with  some  of  the  fruit 
constantly  sent  her  from  Maxwell  Court.  Everything  that  was 
said  about  his  father  he  took  in  and  understood,  but  he  did  not 
seem  to  fret.  His  mother  was  almost  divided  from  him  by  this 
passivity  of  the  dying ;  nor  could  she  give  him  or  his  state  much 
attention.  Her  gentle,  sensitive,  but  not  profound  nature  was 
strained  already  beyond  bearing  by  more  gnawing  gi'iefs. 

After  her  long  sit  in  INIrs.  Hurd's  kitchen  Marcella  found  the 
air  of  the  February  evening  tonic  and  delightful.  Unconsciously 
impressions  stole  upon  her  —  the  lengthening  day,  the  celandines 
in  the  hedges,  the  swelling  lilac  buds  in  the  cottage  gardens. 
They  spoke  to  her  youth,  and  out  of  mere  physical  congruity  it 
could  not  but  respond.  Still,  her  face  kept  the  angered  look  with 
which  she  had  parted  from  Mrs.  Jellison.  More  than  that  —  the 
last  few  weeks  had  visibly  changed  it,  had  graved  upon  it  the 
signs  of  "  living."  It  was  more  beautiful  than  ever  in  its  signifi- 
cant black  and  white,  but  it  was  older  —  a  woman  spoke  from  it. 
Marcella  had  gone  down  into  reality,  and  had  found  there  the 
rebellion  and  the  storm  for  which  such  souls  as  hers  are  made. 
Rebellion  most  of  all.  She  had  been  living  with  the  poor,  in  their 
stifling  rooms,  amid  their  perpetual  struggle  for  a  little  food  and 
clothes  and  bodily  ease ;  she  bad  seen  this  struggle,  so  hard  in 
itself,  combined  with  agonies  of  soul  and  spirit,  which  made  the 
physical  destitution  seem  to  the  spectator  something  brutally  gra- 
tuitous, a  piece  of  careless  and  tyrannous  cruelty  on  the  part  of 
Nature  —  or  God  ?     She  would  hardly  let  herself  think  of  Aldous 

—  though  she  must  think  of  him  by-and-by  !  He  and  his  fared 
sumptuously  every  hour !  As  for  her,  it  was  as  though  in  her 
woman's  arms,  on  her  woman's  breast,  she  carried  Lazarus  all  day, 
stooping  to  him  with  a  hungering  pity.  And  Aldous  stood  aloof. 
Aldous  would  not  help  her  —  or  not  with  any  help  worth  having 

—  in  consoling  this  misery  —  binding  up  tliese  sores.  Her  heart 
cried  shame  on  him.  She  had  a  crime  against  him  to  confess  — 
but  she  felt  herself  his  superior  none  the  less.     If  he  cast  her  oflE 

—  why  then  surely  they  would  be  quits,  quits  for  good  and  all. 

As  she  reached  the  front  door  of  ]\Iellor,  she  saw  a  little  two- 
wheeled  cart  standing  outside  it,  and  William  holding  the  pony. 

Visitors  were  nowadays  more  common  at  Mellor  than  they  had 
been,  and  her  instinct  was  to  escape.  But  as  she  was  turning  to 
a  side  door  William  touched  his  cap  to  her. 

"  i\Ir.  Wharton's  waiting  to  see  you,  miss," 

She  stopped  sharply. 

"  Where  is  Mrs.  Boyce,  William?" 

"  In  the  drawing-room,  miss." 


270  MARCELLA  book  n 

She  walked  in  calmly.  Wharton  was  standing  on  the  rug,  talk- 
ing; Mrs.  Boyce  was  listening  to  what  he  had  to  say  with  the 
light  repellent  air  Marcella  knew  so  well. 

When  she  came  in  Wharton  stepped  forward  ceremoniously  to 
shake  hands,  then  began  to  speak  at  once,  with  the  manner  of  one 
who  is  on  a  business  errand  and  has  no  time  to  waste. 

"  I  thouglit  it  best,  Miss  Boyce,  as  I  had  unexpectedly  a  couple 
of  spare  hours  this  evening,  to  come  and  let  you  know  how  things 
were  going.  You  understand  that  the  case  comes  on  at  the  assizes 
next  Thursday  ?  " 

Marcella  assented.  She  had  seated  herself  on  the  old  sofa  beside 
the  fire,  her  ungloved  hands  on  her  knee.  Something  in  her  aspect 
made  Wharton's  eyes  waver  an  instant  as  he  looked  down  upon 
her  —  but  it  was  the  only  sign. 

"  I  should  like  to  warn  you,"  he  said  gravely,  "  that  I  entertain 
no  hope  whatever  of  getting  James  Hurd  off.  I  shall  do  my  best, 
biit  the  verdict  will  certainly  be  murder ;  and  the  judge,  I  think, 
is  sure  to  take  a  severe  view.  We  may  get  a  recommendation  to 
mercy,  though  I  believe  it  to  be  extremely  unlikely.  But  if  so, 
the  influence  of  the  judge,  according  to  what  I  hear,  will  probably 
be  against  us.  The  prosecution  have  got  together  extremely  strong 
evidence  —  as  to  Kurd's  long  connection  with  the  gang,  in  spite  of 
the  Raeburns'  kindness  —  as  to  his  repeated  threats  that  he  would 
'  do  for  '  Westall  if  he  and  his  friends  were  interrupted  —  and  so 
on.  His  own  story  is  wholly  uncorroborated  ;  and  Dynes's  deposi- 
tion, so  far  as  it  goes,  is  all  against  it." 

He  went  on  to  elaborate  these  points  with  great  clearness  of 
exposition  and  at  some  length ;  then  he  paused. 

"  This  being  so,"  he  resumed,  "  the  question  is,  what  can  be  done  ? 
There  must  be  a  petition.  Amongst  my  own  party  I  shall  be,  of 
course,  able  to  do  something,  but  we  must  have  men  of  all  sides. 
Without  some  at  least  of  the  leading  Conservatives,  we  shall  fare 
badly.  In  one  word  —  do  you  imagine  that  you  can  induce  Mr. 
Raeburn  and  Lord  Maxwell  to  sign  ?  " 

Mrs.  Boyce  watched  him  keenly.   Marcella  sat  in  frozen  paleness. 

"  I  will  try,"  she  said  at  last,  with  deliberation. 

"  Then  "  —  he  took  up  his  gloves  —  "  there  may  be  a  chance  for 
us.  If  jrou  cannot  succeed,  no  one  else  can.  But  if  Lord  Maxwell 
and  Mr.  Raeburn  can  be  secured,  others  will  easily  follow.  Their 
names  —  especially  under  all  the  circumstances  —  will  carry  a 
peculiar  weight.  I  may  say  everything,  in  the  first  instance  — 
the  weight,  the  first  effect  of  the  petition  —  depends  on  them. 
Well,  then,  I  leave  it  in  your  hands.  No  time  should  be  lost  after 
the  sentence.  As  to  the  grounds  of  our  plea,  I  shall,  of  course,  lay 
them  down  in  court  to  the  best  of  my  ability." 


CHAP,   xni  MARCELLA  271 

"  I  shall  be  there,"  she  interrupted. 

He  started.  So  did  Mrs.  Boyce,  but  characteristically  she  made 
no  comment. 

"Well,  then,"  he  resumed  after  a  pause,  "I  need  say  no  more 
for  the  present.     How  is  the  wife?" 

She  replied,  and  a  few  other  formal  sentences  of  enquiry  or  com- 
ment passed  between  them. 

"  And  your  election  ?  "  said  INIrs.  Boyce,  still  studying  him  with 
hostile  eyes,  as  he  got  up  to  take  leave. 

"  To-morrow!"  He  threw  up  his  hands  with  a  little  gesture  of 
impatience.  "  That  at  least  will  be  one  thread  spun  off  and  out 
of  the  way,  whatever  happens.  I  must  get  back  to  Widrington  as 
fast  as  my  jiony  can  carry  me.     Good-bye,  Miss  Boyce." 

Marcella  went  slowly  upstairs.  The  scene  which  had  just  passed 
was  unreal,  impossible  ;  yet  every  limb  was  quivering.  Then  the 
sound  of  the  front  door  shutting  sent  a  shock  through  her  whole 
nature.  The  first  sensation  was  one  of  horrible  emptiness,  for- 
lornness.  The  next  —  her  mind  threw  itself  with  fresh  vehemence 
upon  the  question,  "  Can  I,  by  any  means,  get  my  way  with 
Aldous  ?  " 

CHAPTER   XTII 

"  And  may  the  Lord  have  mercy  on  your  soul !  " 
The  deep-pitched  words  fell  slowly  on  Marcella's  ears,  as  she 
sat  leaning  forward  in  the  gallery  of  the  Widrington  Assize  Court. 
Women  were  sobbing  beside  and  behind  her.  Minta  Hurd,  to  her 
left,  lay  in  a  half -swoon  against  her  sister-in-law,  her  face,  buried  in 
Ann's  black  shawl.  For  an  instant  after  Hurd's  death  sentence  had 
been  spoken  Marcella's  nerves  ceased  to  throb  —  the  long  exhaus- 
tion of  feeling  stopped.  The  harsh  light  and  shade  of  the  ill-lit 
room;  the  gas-lamps  in  front  of  the  judge,  blanching  the  ranged 
faces  of  the  jury ;  the  long  table  of  reporters  below,  some  writing, 
but  most  looking  intently  towards  the  dock ;  the  figure  of  Whar- 
ton opposite,  in  his  barrister's  gown  and  wig — that  face  of  his,  so 
small,  nervous,  delicate  —  the  frowning  eyebrows  a  dark  bar  under 
the  white  of  the  wig  —  his  look,  alert  and  hostile,  fixed  upon  the 
judge ;  the  heads  and  attitudes  of  the  condemned  men,  especially 
the  form  of  a  fair-haired  youth,  the  principal  murderer  of  Charlie 
Dynes,  who  stood  a  little  in  front  of  the  line,  next  to  Hurd,  and 
overshadowing  his  dwarf's  stature  —  these  things  Marcella  saw 
indeed;  for  years  after  she  could  have  described  them  point  by 
point;  but  for  some  seconds  or  minutes  her  eyes  stared  at  them 
without  conscious  reaction  of  the  mind  on  the  immediate  spectacle. 
In  place  of  it,  the  whole  day,  all  these  hours  that  she  had  been 


272  MARCELLA  book  ii 

sitting  there,  brushed  before  her  in  a  synthesis  of  thought,  replac- 
ing the  stream  of  impressions  and  images.  The  crushing  accumu- 
lation of  hostile  evidence  —  witness  after  witness  coming  forward 
to  add  to  the  damning  weight  of  it ;  the  awful  weakness  of  the 
defence  —  Wharton's  irritation  under  it^ — ^the  sharpness,  the  use- 
less, acrid  ability  of  his  cross-examinations ;  yet,  contrasting  with 
the  legal  failure,  the  personal  success,  the  mixture  of  grace  with 
energy,  the  technical  accomplishment  of  the  manner,  as  one  wrest- 
ling before  his  equals  —  nothing  left  here  of  the  garrulous  vigour 
and  brutality  of  the  labourers'  meeting!  —  the  masterly  use  of  all 
that  could  avail,  the  few  quiet  words  addressed  at  the  end  to  the 
pity  of  the  jury,  and  by  implication  to  the  larger  ethical  sense  of 
the  community,  —  all  this  she  thought  of  wdth  great  intellectual 
clearness  while  the  judge's  sonorous  voice  rolled  along,  sentencing 
each  prisoner  in  turn.  Horror  and  pity  were  alike  weary ;  the 
brain  asserted  itself. 

The  court  was  packed.  Aldous  Raeburn  sat  on  Marcella's  right 
hand ;  and  during  the  day  the  attention  of  everybody  in  the  dingy 
building  liad  been  largely  divided  between  the  scene  below,  and 
that  strange  group  in  the  gallery  where  the  man  who  had  just 
been  elected  Conservative  member  for  East  Brookshire,  who  was 
Lord  Maxwell's  heir,  and  Westall's  employer,  sat  beside  his  be- 
trothed, in  charge  of  a  party  which  comprised  not  only  JNIarcella 
Boyce,  but  the  wife,  sister,  and  little  girl  of  Westall's  murderer. 

On  one  occasion  some  blunt  answer  of  a  witness  had  provoked 
a  laugh  coming  no  one  knew  whence.  The  judge  turned  to  the 
gallery  and  looked  up  sternly  —  "I  cannot  conceive  why  men 
and  women  —  women  especially  —  should  come  crowding  in  to  hear 
such  a  case  as  this ;  but  if  I  hear  another  laugh  I  shall  clear  the 
court."  Marcella,  whose  whole  conscious  nature  was  by  now  one 
network  of  sensitive  nerve,  saw  Aldous  flush  and  shrink  as  the 
words  were  spoken.  Then,  looking  across  the  court,  she  caught  the 
eye  of  an  old  friend  of  the  Raeburns,  a  county  magistrate.  At 
the  judge's  remark  he  had  turned  iuA'oluntarily  to  where  she  and 
Aldous  sat ;  then,  as  he  met  Miss  Boyce's  face,  instantly  looked 
aw'ay  again.  She  perfectly — passionately  —  understood  that  Brook- 
shire was  very  sorry  for  Aldous  Raeburn  that  day. 

The  death  sentences  —  three  in  number — wei'e  over.  The  judge 
was  a  very  ordinary  man  ;  but,  even  for  the  ordinary  man,  such 
an  act  carries  with  it  a  great  tradition  of  what  is  befitting,  which 
imposes  itself  on  voice  and  gesture.  When  he  ceased,  the  deep 
breath  of  natural  emotion  could  be  felt  and  heard  throughout 
the  crowded  court ;  loud  wails  of  sobbing  women  broke  from  the 
gallery. 

"  Silence  !  "  cried  an  official  voice,  and  the  judge  resumed,  amid 


CHAP,  xiii  MARCELLA  273 

stifled  sounds  that  stabbed  Marcella's  sense,  once  more  nakedly 
alive  to  eveiytliing  around  it. 

The  sentences  to  penal  servitude  came  to  an  end  also.  Then  a 
ghastly  pause.  The  line  of  prisoners  directed  by  the  warders 
turned  right  about  face  towards  a  door  in  the  back  wall  of  the 
court.  As  the  men  filed  out,  the  tall,  fair  youth,  one  of  those 
condemned  to  death,  stopped  an  instant  and  waved  his  hand  to 
his  sobbing  sweetheart  in  the  gallery.  Hurd  also  turned  irreso- 
lutely. 

"  Look  ! "  exclaimed  Ann  IMullins,  propping  up  the  fainting 
woman  beside  her,  "  he's  goin'." 

Marcella  bent  forward.  She,  rather  than  the  wife,  caught  the 
last  look  on  his  large  dwarf's  face,  so  white  and  dazed,  the  eyes 
blinking  under  the  gas. 

Aldous  touched  her  softly  on  the  arm. 

"  Yes,"  she  said  quickly,  "yes,  we  must  get  her  out.  Ann,  can 
you  lift  her  ?  " 

Aldous  went  to  one  side  of  the  helpless  woman :  Ann  Mullins 
held  her  on  the  other.  Marcella  followed,  pressing  the  little  girl 
close  against  her  long  black  cloak.  The  gallery  made  way  for 
them ;  every  one  looked  and  whispered  till  they  had  passed.  Below, 
at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  they  found  themselves  in  a  passage 
crowded  with  people  —  lawyers,  witnesses,  officials,  mixed  with 
the  populace.  Again  a  road  was  opened  for  Aldous  and  his 
charges. 

"This  way,  Mr.  Raeburn,"  said  a  policeman,  with  alacrity. 
"  Stand  back,  please  !     Is  your  carriage  there,  sir  ?  " 

"  Let  Ann  Mullins  take  her  —  put  them  into  the  cab  —  I  want 
to  speak  to  Mr.  Wharton,"  said  Marcella  in  Aldous's  ear. 

"  Get  me  a  cab  at  once,"  he  said  to  the  policeman,  "  and  tell  my 
carriage  to  wait." 

"  Miss  Boyce  !  " 

Marcella  turned  hastily  and  saw  Wharton  beside  her.  Aldous 
also  saw  him,  and  the  two  men  interchanged  a  few  words. 

"  There  is  a  private  room  close  by,"  said  Wharton,  "  I  am  to 
take  you  there,  and  Mr.  Raeburn  will  join  us  at  once." 

He  led  her  along  a  corridor,  and  opened  a  door  to  the  left. 
They  entered  a  small  dingy  room,  looking  through  a  begrimed 
window  on  a  courtyard.  The  gas  was  lit,  and  the  table  was 
strewn  with  papers. 

"  Xever,  never  more  beautiful ! "  flashed  through  Wharton's 
mind,  "  with  that  knit,  strenuous  brow  —  that  tragic  scorn  for  a 
base  world  —  that  royal  gait  —  " 

Aloud  he  said : 

"  I  have  done  my  best  privately  among  the  people  I  can  get  at, 


274  MARCELLA  book  n 

and  I  thought,  before  I  go  up  to  town  to-night — you  know  Par- 
liament meets  on  Monday  ?  —  I  would  show  you  what  I  had  been 
able  to  do,  and  ask  you  to  take  charge  of  a  copy  of  the  petition." 
He  pointed  to  a  long  envelope  lying  on  the  table.  "  I  have  drafted 
it  myself  —  I  think  it  puts  all  the  points  we  can  possibly  urge  — 
but  as  to  the  names  —  " 

He  took  out  a  folded  sheet  of  paper  from  his  breast  pocket. 

"It  won't  do,"  he  said,  looking  down  at  it,  and  shaking  his 
head.  "  As  I  said  to  you,  it  is  so  far  political  merely.  There  is  a 
very  strong  Liberal  and  Radical  feeling  getting  up  about  the  case. 
But  that  won't  carry  us  far.  This  petition  with  these  names  is 
a  demonstration  against  game-preserving  and  keepers'  tyi'anny. 
What  we  want  is  the  co-operation  of  a  neighbourhood,  especially  of 
its  leading  citizens.  However,  I  explained  all  this  to  you  —  there 
is  no  need  to  discuss  it.     Will  you  look  at  the  list  ?  " 

Still  holding  it,  he  ran  his  finger  over  it,  commenting  here  and 
there.  She  stood  beside  him ;  the  sleeve  of  his  gown  brushed  her 
black  cloak ;  and  under  his  perfect  composure  there  beat  a  wild 
exultation  in  his  power  —  without  any  apology,  any  forgiveness  — 
to  hold  her  there,  alone  with  him,  listening — her  proud  head  stooped 
to  his  —  her  eye  following  his  with  this  effort  of  anxious  attention. 

She  made  a  few  hurried  remarks  on  the  names,  but  her  knowl- 
edge of  the  county  was  naturally  not  veiy  serviceable.  He 
folded  up  the  paper  and  put  it  back. 

"  I  think  we  understand,"  he  said.  "  You  will  do  what  you  can 
in  the  only  quarter"  —  he  spoke  slowly — "that  can  really  aid,  and 
you  will  communicate  with  me  at  the  House  of  Commons?  I 
shall  do  what  I  can,  of  course,  when  the  moment  comes,  in  Par- 
liament, and  meanwhile  I  shall  start  the  matter  in  the  Press  —  our 
best  hope.     The  Radical  papers  are  already  taking  it  up." 

There  was  a  sound  of  steps  in  the  passage  outside.  A  policeman 
opened  the  door,  and  Aldous  Raeburn  entered.  His  quick  look 
ran  over  the  two  figures  standing  beside  the  table. 

"  I  had  some  difficidty  in  finding  a  cab,"  he  explained,  "  and  we 
had  to  get  some  brandy;  but  she  came  round,  and  we  got  her  off. 
I  sent  one  of  our  men  with  her.     The  carriage  is  here." 

He  spoke — to  Marcella — with  some  formality.  He  was  very 
pale,  but  there  was  both  authority  and  tension  in  his  bearing. 

"  I  have  been  consulting  with  Miss  Boyce,"  said  Wharton,  with 
equal  distance  of  manner,  "  as  to  the  petition  we  are  sending  up  to 
the  Home  Office." 

Aldous  made  no  reply. 

"One  word.  Miss  Boyce,"  —  Wliarton  quietly  turned  to  her. 
"  May  I  ask  you  to  read  the  petition  carefully,  before  you  attempt 
to  do  anything  with  it?     It  lays  stress  on  the  only  doubt  that  can 


CHAP.  XIII  MAKCELLA  275 

reasonably  be  felt  after  the  evidence,  and  after  the  judge's  sum- 
ming up.  That  particular  doubt  I  hold  to  be  entirely  untouched 
by  the  trial;  but  it  requires  careful  stating  —  the  issues  may  easily 
be  confused." 

"  Will  you  come  ?  "  said  Aldous  to  ]\Iarcella.  What  she  chose 
to  think  the  forced  patience  of  his  tone  exasperated  her. 

"I  will  do  everything  I  can,"  she  said  in  a  low,  distinct  voice  to 
Wharton.     "  Good-bye." 

She  held  out  her  hand.  To  both  the  moment  was  one  of  infi- 
nite meaning;  to  her,  in  her  high  spiritual  excitement,  a  sacra- 
ment of  pardon  and  gratitude  —  expressed  once  for  all  —  by  this 
touch  —  in  Aldous  Raeburn's  presence. 

The  two  men  nodded  to  each  other.  AVharton  was  already  busy, 
putting  his  papers  togetlier. 

"We  shall  meet  next  week,  I  suppose,  in  the  House?"  said 
Wharton,  casually.     "  Good-night." 

"  Will  you  take  me  to  the  Court  ? "  said  Marcella  to  Aldous, 
directly  the  door  of  the  carriage  was  shut  upon  them,  and,  amid  a 
gaping  crowd  that  almost  filled  the  little  market-place  of  Widring- 
ton,  the  horses  moved  off.  "  I  told  mamma,  that,  if  I  did  not 
come  home,  I  should  be  with  you,  and  that  I  should  ask  you  to 
send  me  back  from  the  Court  to-night." 

She  still  held  the  packet  Wharton  had  given  her  in  her  hand. 
As  though  for  air,  she  had  thrown  back  the  black  gauze  veil 
she  had  worn  all  through  the  trial,  and,  as  they  passed  through 
the  lights  of  the  town,  Aldous  could  see  in  her  face  the  signs 
— the  plain,  startling  signs  —  of  the  effect  of  these  weeks  upon  her. 
Pale,  exhausted,  yet  showing  in  every  movement  the  nervous 
excitement  which  was  driving  her  on  —  his  heart  sank  as  he  looked 
at  her  —  foreseeing  what  was  to  come. 

As  soon  as  the  main  street  had  been  left  behind,  he  put  his 
head  out  of  the  window,  and  gave  the  coachman,  who  had  been 
told  to  go  to  Mellor,  the  new  order. 

"  Will  you  mind  if  I  don't  talk  ?  "  said  Marcella,  when  he  was 
again  beside  her.  "  I  think.  I  am  tired  out,  but  I  might  rest  now 
a  little.  When  we  get  to  the  Court,  will  you  ask  Miss  Raeburn 
to  let  me  have  some  food  in  her  sitting-room  ?  Then,  at  nine 
o'clock  or  so,  may  I  come  down  and  see  Lord  Maxwell  and  you  — 
together  ?  "  i 

What  she  said,  and  the  manner  in  which  she  said  it,  could  only  • 
add  to  his  uneasiness;  but  he  assented,  put  a  cushion  behind  her, 
wrapi^ed  the  rugs  round  her,  and  then  sat  silent,  train  after  train 
of  close  and  anxious  thought  passing  through  his  mind  as  they 
rolled  along  the  dark  roads. 


276  MARCELLA  book  ii 

"When  they  arrived  at  Maxwell  Court,  the  sound  of  the  carriage 
brought  Lord  Maxwell  and  Miss  Raeburn.at  once  into  the  hall. 

Aldous  went  forward  in  front  of  Marcella.  "I  have  brought 
Marcella,"  he  said  hastily  to  his  aunt.  "AVill  you  take  her  up- 
stairs to  your  sitting-room,  and  let  her  have  some  food  and  I'est  ? 
She  is  not  fit  for  the  exertion  of  dinner,  but  she  wishes  to  speak 
to  my  grandfather  afterwards." 

Lord  Maxwell  had  already  hurried  to  meet  the  black-veiled 
figure  standing  proudly  in  the  dim  light  of  the  outer  hall. 

"  My  dear  !  my  dear!  "  he  said,  drawing  her  arm  within  his,  and 
patting  her  hand  in  fatherly  fashion.  "  How  worn-out  you  look! 
—  Yes,  certainly  —  Agneta,  take  her  up  and  let  her  rest  —  And 
you  wish  to  speak  to  me  afterwards?  Of  course,  my  dear,  of 
course  — at  any  time." 

Miss  Raeburn,  controlling  herself  absolutely,  partly  because  of 
Aldous's  manner,  partly  because  of  the  servants,  took  her  guest 
upstairs  straightway,  put  her  on  the  sofa  in  a  cheerful  sitting- 
room  with  a  bright  fire,  and  then,  shrewdly  guessing  that  she 
herself  could  not  possibly  be  a  congenial  companion  to  the  girl  at 
such  a  moment,  whatever  might  have  happened  or  might  be  going 
to  happen,  she  looked  at  her  watch,  said  that  she  must  go  down  to 
dinner,  and  promptly  left  her  to  the  charge  of  a  kind  elderly_^ 
maid,  who  was  to  do  and  get  for  her  whatever  she  would. 

Marcella  made  herself  swallow  some  food  and  wine.  Then  she 
said  that  she  wished  to  be  alone  and  rest  for  an  hour,  and  would 
come  downstairs  at  nine  o'clock.  The  maid,  shocked  by  her 
pallor,  was  loth  to  leave  her,  but  Marcella  insisted. 

When  she  was  left  alone  she  drew  herself  up  to  the  fire  and 
tried  hard  to  get  warm,  as  she  had  tried  to  eat.  "When  in  this 
way  a  portion  of  physical  ease  and  strength  had  come  back  to 
her,  she  took  out  the  petition  from  its  envelope  and  read  it  care- 
fully. As  she  did  so  her  lip  relaxed,  her  eye  recovered  something 
of  its  brightness.  All  the  points  that  had  occurred  to  her  con- 
fusedly, amateurishly,  throughout  the  day,  were  here  thrown  into 
luminous  and  admirable  form.  She  had  listened  to  them  indeed, 
as  urged  by  Wharton  in  his  concluding  speech  to  the  jury,  but  it 
had  not,  alas!  seemed  so  marvellous  to  her  then,  as  it  did  now, 
that,  after  such  a  plea,  the  judge  should  have  summed  up  as  he 
did. 

When  she  had  finished  it  and  had  sat  thinking  awhile  over  the 
declining  fire,  an  idea  struck  her.  She  took  a  piece  of  paper  from 
Miss  Raeburn's  desk,  and  wi'ote  on  it: 

""Will  you  read  this  —  and  Lord  Maxwell  —  before  I  comedown? 
I  forgot  that  you  had  not  seen  it.  — M." 
A  ring  at  the  bell  brought  the  maid. 


CHAP.  XIII  MARCELLA  277 

"Will  you  please  get  this  taken  to  Mi-.  Raeburn?  And  then, 
don't  disturb  me  again  I'oi-  half  an  hour." 

And  for  that  time  she  lay  in  Miss  Raeburn's  favourite  chair, 
outwardly  at  rest.  Inwardly  she  was  ranging  all  her  arguments, 
marshalling  all  her  forces. 

When  the  chiming  clock  in  the  great  hall  below  struck  nine,  she 
got  up  and  put  the  lamp  for  a  moment  on  the  mantelpiece,  which 
held  a  mirror.  She  had  already  bathed  her  face  and  smoothed 
her  hair.  But  she  looked  at  herself  again  with  attention,  drew 
down  the  thick  front  waves  of  hair  a  little  lower  on  the  white 
brow,  as  she  liked  to  have  them,  and  once  more  straightened  the 
collar  and  cuffs  which  were  the  only  relief  to  her  plain  black 
dress. 

The  house  as  she  stepped  out  into  it  seemed  very  still.  Per- 
fumed breaths  of  flowers  and  pot-pourri  ascended  from  the  hall. 
The  pictures  along  the  walls  as  she  passed  were  those  same  Caro- 
line and  early  Georgian  beauties  that  had  so  flashingiy  suggested 
her  own  future  rule  in  this  domain  on  the  day  when  Aldous  pro- 
posed to  her. 

She  felt  suddenly  very  shrinking  and  lonely  as  she  went  down- 
stairs. The  ticking  of  a  large  clock  somewhere  —  the  short,  scream- 
ing note  of  ]\Iiss  Raeburn's  parrot  in  one  of  the  ground-floor  rooms 
— these  sounds  and  the  beating  of  her  own  heart  seemed  to  have 
the  vast  house  to  themselves. 

No! — that  was  a  door  opening  —  Aldous  coming  to  fetch  her. 
She  drew  a  childish  breath  of  comfort. 

He  sprang  up  the  stairs,  two  or  three  steps  at  a  time,  as  he  saw 
her  coming. 

"Are  you  rested  —  were  they  good  to  you?  Oh!  my  precious 
one!  —  how  pale  you  are  still !  Will  you  come  and  see  my  grand- 
father now?     He  is  quite  ready." 

She  let  him  lead  her  in.  Lord  Maxwell  was  standing  by  his 
writing-table,  leaning  over  the  petition  which  was  open  before 
him  —  one  hand  upon  it.  At  sight  of  her  he  lifted  his  white 
head.  His  fine  aquiline  face  was  grave  and  disturbed.  But 
nothing  could  have  been  kinder  or  more  courtly  than  his  man- 
ner as  he  came  towards  her. 

"  Sit  down  in  that  chair.  Aldous,  make  her  comfortable.  Poor 
child,  how  tired  she  looks  !  I  hear  you  washed  to  speak  to  me  on 
this  most  unhappy,  most  miserable  business." 

Marcella,  who  was  sitting  erect  on  the  edge  of  the  chair  into 
which  Aldous  had  put  her,  lifted  her  eyes  with  a  sudden  confidence. 
She  had  always  liked  Lord  Maxwell. 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  struggling  to  keep  down  eagerness  and  emotion. 
"  Yes,  I  came  to  bring  you  this  petition,  which  is  to  be  sent  up  to 


278  MARCELLA  book  ii 

the  Home  Secretary  on  behalf  of  Jim  Ilurd,  and  —  and  —  to  beg  of 
you  and  Aldous  to  sign  it,  if  in  any  way  you  can.  I  know  it  will 
be  difficult,  but  I  thought  I  might  —  I  might  be  able  to  suggest 
something  to  you  —  to  convince  you  —  as  I  have  known  these 
people  so  well  —  and  it  is  very  important  to  have  your  signatures." 

How  crude  it  sounded  —  how  mechanical !  She  felt  that  she 
had  not  yet  command  of  herself.  The  strange  place,  the  stately 
room,  the  consciousness  of  Aldous  behind  her  —  Aldous,  who 
should  have  been  on  her  side  and  was  not — all  combined  to 
intimidate  her. 

Lord  Maxwell's  concern  was  evident.  In  tlie  first  place,  lie  was 
painfully,  unexpectedly  struck  by  the  change  in  the  speaker. 
Why,  what  had  Aldous  been  about?  So  thin!  so  frail  and 
willowy  in  her  black  dress  —  monstrous  I 

"My  dear,"  he  said,  walking  np  to  her  and  laying  a  fatherly 
hand  on  her  shoulder,  "  my  dear,  I  wish  I  could  make  you  under- 
stand how  gladly  I  would  do  this,  or  anything  else,  for  you,  if  I 
honourably  could.  I  would  do  it  for  your  sake  and  for  your 
grandfather's  sake.  But — this  is  a  matter  of  conscience,  of  pub- 
lic duty,  both  for  Aldous  and  myself.  You  will  not  surely  loish 
even,  that  we  should  be  governed  in  our  relations  to  it  by  any 
private  feeling  or  motive  ?  " 

"No,  but  T  have  had  no  opportunity  of  speaking  to  you  about  it 
—  and  I  take  such  a  different  view  from  Aldous.  He  knows  — 
everybody  must  know  —  that  there  is  another  side,  another  pos- 
sible view  from  that  which  the  judge  took.  You  weren't  in  court 
to-day,  were  you,  at  all  ?  " 

"  No.  But  I  read  all  the  evidence  before  the  magistrates  with 
great  care,  and  T  have  just  talked  over  the  crucial  points  with 
Aldous,  who  followed  everything  to-day,  as  you  know,  and  seems 
to  have  taken  special  note  of  INIr.  Wharton's  speeches." 

"  Aldous  !  "  —  her  voice  broke  irrepressibly  into  another  note  — 
"  I  thought  he  would  have  let  me  speak  to  you  first !  —  to-night !  " 

Lord  Maxwell,  looking  quickly  at  his  grandson,  was  very  sorry 
for  him.     Aldous  bent  over  her  chair. 

"  You  remember,"  he  said,  "  you  sent  down  the  petition.  I 
thought  that  meant  that  we  were  to  read  and  discuss  it.  I  am 
very  sorry." 

She  tried  to  command  herself,  pressing  her  hand  to  her  brow. 
But  already  she  felt  the  irrevocable,  and  anger  and  despair  were 
rising. 

"  The  whole  point  lies  in  this,"  she  said,  looking  up :  "  Can  we 
believe  Hurd's  own  story?  There  is  no  evidence  to  corroborate  it. 
I  grant  that  —  the  judge  did  not  believe  it  —  and  there  is  the 
evidence  of  hatred.     But  is  it  not  possible  and  conceivable  all  the 


CHAP.    XIII 


MARC  ELL  A  279 


same?  He  says  that  he  did  not  go  out  with  any  thought  what- 
ever of  killing  Westall,  but  that  when  Westall  caine  upon  him 
with  his  stick  up,  threatening  and  abusing  him,  as  he  had  done 
often  before,  in  a  fit  of  wild  rage  he  shot  at  him.  Surely,  surely 
that  is  conceivable  ?  There  is  —  there  must  be  a  doubt ;  or,  if  it  is 
murder,  murder  done  in  that  way  is  quite,  quite  different  from 
other  kinds  and  degrees  of  murder." 

Now  she  possessed  herself.  The  gift  of  flowing  persuasive  speech 
which  was  naturally  hers,  which  the  agitations,  the  debates  of 
these  weeks  had  been  matvu'ing,  came  to  her  call.  She  leant  for- 
ward and  took  up  the  petition.  One  by  one  she  went  through  its 
pleas,  adding  to  them  here  and  there  from  her  own  knowledge  of 
Hurd  and  his  peasant's  life — presenting  it  all  clearly,  with  great 
intellectual  force,  but  in  an  atmosphere  of  emotion,  of  high  pity, 
charged  throughout  with  the  "tears  of  things."  To  her,  gradually, 
unconsciously,  the  whole  matter  —  so  sordid,  commonplace,  brutal 
in  Lord  IMaxwell's  eyes !  —  had  become  a  tragic  poem,  a  thing 
of  fear  and  pity,  to  which  her  whole  being  vibrated.  And  as  she 
conceived  it,  so  she  reproduced  it.  Wharton's  points  were  there 
indeed,  but  so  were  Kurd's  poverty,  Hurd's  deformity,  Hurd  as 
the  boyish  victim  of  a  tyrant's  insults,  the  miserable  wife,  the 
branded  children  —  emphasised,  all  of  them,  by  the  occasional 
quiver,  quickly  steadied  again,  of  the  girl's  voice. 

Lord  Maxwell  sat  by  his  writing-table,  his  head  resting  on  his 
hand,  one  knee  crossed  over  the  other.  Aldous  still  hung  over  her 
chair.  Neither  interrupted  her.  Once  the  eyes  of  the  two  men 
met  over  her  head  —  a  distressed,  significant  look.  Aldous  heard 
all  she  said,  but  what  absorbed  him  mainly  was  the  wild  desire  to 
kiss  the  dark  hair,  so  close  below  him,  alternating  with  the  miser- 
able certainty  that  for  him  at  that  moment  to  touch,  to  soothe  her, 
was  to  be  repulsed. 

When  her  voice  broke  —  when  she  had  said  all  she  could  think 
of  —  she  remained  looking  imploringly  at  Lord  Maxwell. 

He  was  silent  a  little ;  then  he  stooped  forward  and  took  her 
hand. 

"  You  have  spoken,"  he  said  with  great  feeling,  "  most  nobly  — 
most  well  —  like  a  good  woman,  with  a  true  comiiassionate  heart. 
But  all  these  things  you  have  said  are  not  new  to  me,  my  dear 
child.  Aldous  warned  me  of  this  petition  —  he  has  pressed  upon 
me,  still  more  I  am  sure  upon  himself,  all  that  he  conceived  to  be 
your  view  of  the  case  —  the  view  of  those  who  are  now  moving  in 
the  matter.  But  with  the  best  will  in  the  world  I  cannot,  and 
I  believe  that  he  cannot  —  though  he  must  speak  for  himself — I 
cannot  take  that  view.  In  my  belief  Hurd's  act  was  murder,  and 
desei-ves  the  penalty  of  murder.     I  have  paid  some  attention  to 


280  MARCELLA  book  ii 

these  things.  I  was  a  practising  barrister  in  my  youth,  and  later 
I  was  for  two  years  Home  Secretary.  I  will  explain  to  you  my 
grounds  very  shortly." 

And,  bending  forward,  he  gave  the  reasons  for  his  judgment  of 
the  case  as  carefully  and  as  lucidly  as  though  he  were  stating  them 
to  a  fellow-expert,  and  not  to  an  agitated  girl  of  twenty-one.  Both 
in  words  and  manner  there  was  an  implied  tribute,  not  only  to 
Marcella,  but  perhaps  to  that  altered  position  of  the  woman  in  our 
moving  world  which  affects  so  many  things  and  persons  in  unex- 
pected ways. 

Marcella  listened,  restlessly.  She  had  drawn  her  hand  away, 
and  was  twisting  her  handkerchief  between  her  fingers.  The  flush 
that  had  sjirung  up  while  she  was  talking  had  died  away.  She 
grew  whiter  and  whiter.  When  Lord  Maxwell  ceased,  she  said 
quickly,  and  as  he  thought  unreasonably  — 

"  So  you  will  not  sign?  " 

"  No,"  he  replied  firmly,  "  I  cannot  sign.  Holding  the  conviction 
about  the  matter  I  do,  I  should  be  giving  my  name  to  statements 
I  do  not  believe ;  and  in  order  to  give  myself  the  pleasure  of  pleas- 
ing you,  and  of  indulging  the  pity  that  evei'y  man  must  feel  for 
every  murderer's  wife  and  children,  I  should  be  not  only  commit- 
ting a  public  wrong,  but  I  should  be  doing  what  I  could  to  lessen 
the  safety  and  security  of  one  whole  class  of  my  servants  —  men 
who  give  me  honourable  service  —  and  two  of  whom  have  been  so 
cruelly,  so  wantonly  hurried  before  their  Maker  !  " 

His  voice  gave  the  first  sign  of  his  own  deep  and  painful  feeling 
on  the  matter.     Marcella  shivered. 

"  Then,"  she  said  slowly,  "  Hurd  will  be  executed." 

Lord  Maxwell  had  a  movement  of  impatience. 

"  Let  me  tell  you,"  he  said,  "  that  that  does  not  follow  at  all.  There 
is  some  importance  in  signatures  —  or  rather  in  the  local  move- 
ment that  the  signatures  imply.  It  enables  a  case  to  be  reopened, 
which,  in  any  event,  this  case  is  sure  to  be.  But  any  Home  Secre- 
tary who  could  decide  a  murder  case  on  any  other  grounds  what- 
ever than  those  of  law  and  his  own"  conscience  would  not  deserve 
his  place  a  day  —  an  hour !  Believe  me,  you  mistake  the  whole 
situation." 

He  spoke  slowly,  with  the  sharp  emphasis  natural  to  his  age 
and  authority.  Marcella  did  not  believe  him.  Every  nerve  was 
beginning  to  throb  anew  with  that  passionate  recoil  against 
tyranny  and  prejudice,  which  was  in  itself  an  agony. 

"And  you  say  the  same?"  she  said,  turning  to  Aldous. 

"  I  cannot  sign  that  petition,"  he  said  sadly.  "  Won't  you  try 
and  believe  what  it  costs  me  to  refuse  ?  " 

It  was  a  heavy  blow  to  her.     Amply  as  she  had  been  prepared 


CHAP.  XIII  MARCELLA  281 

for  it,  there  had  always  been  at  the  bottom  of  her  mind  a  persua- 
sion that  in  the  end  she  would  get  her  way.  She  had  been  used 
to  feel  l)arriers  go  down  before  tliat  ultimate  power  of  personality 
of  which  she  was  abundantly  conscious.  Yet  it  had  not  availed 
her  here  —  not  even  with  the  man  who  loved  her. 

Lord  Maxwell  looked  at  the  two  —  the  man's  face  of  suffering, 
the  girl's  struggling  breath. 

"  There,  there,  Aldous !  "  he  said,  rising.  "  I  will  leave  you  a  min- 
ute. Do  make  ^Nlarcella  rest  —  get  her,  for  all  our  sakes,  to  forget  this 
a  little.  Bring  her  in  presently  to  us  for  some  coffee.  Above  all, 
persuade  her  that  we  love  her  and  admire  her  with  all  our  hearts, 
but  that  in  a  matter  of  this  kind  she  must  leave  us  to  do  —  as 
before  God !  —  what  we  think  right." 

He  stood  before  her  an  instant,  gazing  down  upon  her  with 
dignity  —  nay,  a  certain  severity.  Then  he  turned  away  and 
left  the  room. 

Marcella  sprang  up. 

"  Will  you  order  the  carriage  ? "  she  said  in  a  strangled  voice. 
"  I  will  go  upstairs." 

"Marcella!"  cried  Aldous;  "can  you  not  be  just  to  me,  if  it  is 
impossible  for  you  to  be  generous  ?  " 

"Just!"  she  repeated,  with  a  tone  and  gesture  of  repulsion, 
pushing  him  back  from  her.     '-'Fou  can  talk  of  justice!  " 

He  tried  to  speak,  stammered,  and  failed.  That  strange  paraly- 
sis of  the  will-forces  which  dogs  the  man  of  reflection  at  the  mo- 
ment when  he  must  either  take  his  world  by  storm  or  lose  it  was 
upon  him  now.  He  had  never  loved  her  more  passionately  —  but 
as  he  stood  there  looking  at  her,  something  broke  within  him,  the 
first  prescience  of  the  inevitable  dawned. 

^^You"  she  said  again,  walking  stormily  to  and  fro,  and  catching 
at  her  breath  —  ^'■You,  in  this  house,  with  this  life  —  to  talk  of 
justice  —  the  justice  that  comes  of  slaying  a  man  like  Hurd  !  And 
I  must  go  back  to  that  cottage,  to  that  woman,  and  tell  her  there 
is  no  hope  —  none  !  Because  you  must  follow  your  conscience  — 
you  who  have  everything!  Oh  !  I  would  not  have  your  conscience 
—  I  wish  you  a  heart  —  rather  !  Don't  come  to  me,  please  ! 
Oh !  I  must  think  how  it  can  be.  Things  cannot  go  on  so.  I 
should  bill  myself,  and  make  you  miserable.  But  now  I  must  go 
to  her  —  to  the  poor  —  to  those  whom  I  love,  whom  I  carry  in  my 
heart !  " 

She  broke  off  sob])ing.  He  saw  her,  in  her  wild  excitement,  look 
round  the  splendid  room  as  though  she  would  wither  it  to  ruin 
with  one  fiery,  accusing  glance. 

"  You  are  very  scornful  of  Avealth,"  he  said,  catching  her  wrists, 
"  but  one  thing  you  have  no  right  to  scorn  !  —  the  man  who  has 


282  MARCELLA  book  ii 

giveti  you  his  inmost  heart  —  and  now  only  asks  you  to  believe  in 
this,  that  he  is  not  the  cruel  hypocrite  you  are  determined  to  make 
him!" 

His  face  quivered  in  every  feature.  She  was  checked  a  moment 
—  checked  by  the  moral  compulsion  of  his  tone  and  manner,  as 
well  as  by  his  words.     But  again  she  tore  herself  away. 

"  Please  go  and  order  the  carriage,"  she  said.  "  I  cannot  bear 
any  more.  I  must  go  home  and  rest.  Some  day  I  will  ask  your 
pardon  —  oh!  for  this  —  and  —  and — "she  was  almost  choked 
again —  "  other  things.  But  now  I  must  go  away.  There  is  some 
one  who  will  help  me.     I  must  not  forget  that !  " 

The  I'eckless  words,  the  inflection,  turned  Aldous  to  stone.  Un- 
consciously he  drew  himself  proudly  erect  —  their  eyes  met.  Then 
he  went  up  to  the  bell  and  rang  it. 

"  The  brougham  at  once,  for  Miss  Boyce.  Will  you  have  a  maid 
to  go  with  you?  "  he  asked,  motioning  the  servant  to  stay  till  Miss 
Boyce  had  given  her  answer. 

"  No,  thank  you.  I  must  go  and  put  on  my  things.  Will  you 
explain  to  JNIiss  Raeburn?" 

The  footman  opened  the  door  for  her.     She  went. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

"  But  this  is  unbearable  ! "  said  Aldous.  "  Do  you  mean  to  say 
that  she  is  at  home  and  that  she  will  not  see  me  ?  " 

Mrs.  Boyce's  self-possession  was  shaken  for  once  by  the  flushed 
humiliation  of  the  man  before  her. 

"  I  am  afraid  it  is  so,"  she  said  hurriedly.  "  I  remonstrated 
with  Marcella,  but  I  could  do  nothing.  I  think,  if  you  are  wise, 
you  will  not  for  the  present  attempt  to  see  her." 

Aldous  sat  down,  with  his  hat  in  his  hand,  staring  at  the  floor. 
After  a  few  moments'  silence  he  looked  up  again. 

"And  she  gave  you  no  message  for  me?" 

"  No,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  reluctantly.  "  Only  that  she  could  not 
bear  to  see  anybody  from  the  Com't,  even  you,  while  this  matter 
was  still  undecided." 

Aldous's  eye  travelled  round  the  Mellor  drawing-room;  It  was 
arrested  by  a  chair  beside  him.  On  it  lay  an  envelope  addressed 
to  Miss  Boyce,  of  which  the  handwriting  seemed  to  him  familiar. 
A  needle  with  some  black  silk  hanging  from  it  had  been  thrust 
into  the  stuffed  arm  of  the  chair;  the  cushion  at  the  back  still 
bore  the  imprint  of  the  sitter.  She  had  been  there,  not  three 
minutes  ago,  and  had  fled  before  him.  The  door  into  Mrs. 
Boyce's  sitting-room  was  still  ajar. 


CHAP.  XIV  MARCELLA  283 

He  looked  as^ain  at  the  envelope  on  the  chair,  and  recognised 
the  writing.  Walking  across  to  where  Mrs.  Boyce  sat,  he  took 
a  seat  beside  her. 

"Will  you  tell  me,"  he  said  steadily  —  "I  think  you  will  admit 
I  have  a  right  to  know  —  is  Marcella  in  constant  correspondence 
now  with  Henry  Wharton?" 

Mrs.  Boyce's  start  was  not  perceptible. 

"I  believe  so,"  she  quickly  replied.  "So  far  as  I  can  judge,  he 
writes  to  her  almost  every  other  day." 

"  Does  she  show  you  his  letters?  " 

"Very  often.  They  are  entirely  concerned  with  his  daily  inter- 
views and  efforts  on  Hurd's  behalf." 

"  Would  you  not  say,"  he  asked,  after  another  pause,  raising  his 
clear  grey  eyes  to  her,  "  that  since  his  arrival  here  in  December 
Marcella's  whole  views  and  thoughts  have  been  largely  —  perhaps 
vitally  —  influenced  by  this  man?" 

Mrs.  Boyce  had  long  expected  questions  of  this  kind  —  had, 
indeed,  often  marvelled  and  cavilled  that  Aldous  had  not  asked 
them  weeks  before.  Now  that  they  were  put  to  her  she  was,  first 
of  all,  anxious  to  treat  them  with  common  sense,  and  as  much 
plain  truth  as  might  be  fair  to  both  parties.  The  perpetual  emo- 
tion in  which  Marcella  lived  tired  and  oppressed  the  mother.  For 
herself  she  asked  to  see  things  in  a  dry  light.  Yet  she  knew  well 
that  the  moment  was  critical.  Her  feeling  was  more  mixed  than 
it  had  been.  On  the  whole  it  was  indignantly  on  Aldous's  side  — 
with  qualifications  and  impatiences,  however. 

She  took  up  her  embroidery  again  before  she  answered  him.  In 
her  ojiinion  the  needle  is  to  the  woman  what  the  cigarette  is  to  the 
diplomatist. 

"  Yes,  certainly,"  she  said  at  last.  "  He  has  done  a  great  deal  to 
form  her  opinions.  He  has  made  her  both  read  and  think  on  all 
those  subjects  she  has  so  long  been  fond  of  talking  about." 

She  saw  Aldous  wince ;  but  she  had  her  reasons  for  being  plain 
with  him. 

"Has  there  been  nothing  else  than  that  in  it?"  said  Aldous,  in 
an  odd  voice. 

Mrs.  Boyce  tried  no  evasions.  She  looked  at  him  straight,  her 
slight,  energetic  head,  with -its  pale  gold  hair  lit  up  by  the  March 
sun  behind  her. 

"I  do  not  know,"  she  said  calmly;  "that  is  the  real  truth.  I 
(h'wh  there  is  nothing  else.    But  let  me  tell  you  what  more  1  think." 

Aldous  laid  his  hand  on  hers  for  an  instant.  In  his  ^lity  and 
liking  for  her  he  had  once  or  twice  allowed  himself  this  quasi- 
filial  freedom. 

"  If  you  would,"  he  entreated. 


284  MAECELLA  book  ii 

"Leave  Marcella  quite  alone  —  for  the  present.  She  is  not  her- 
self—  not  normal,  in  any  way.  Nor  will  she  be  till  this  dreadful 
thing  is  over.  But  when  it  is  over,  and  she  has  had  time  to 
recover  a  little,  then" — her  thin  voice  expressed  all  the  emphasis 
it  could  —  ^'■then  assert  yourself!  Ask  her  that  question  you  have 
asked  me  —  and  get  your  answer." 

He  understood.  Her  advice  to  him,  and  the  tone  of  it,  implied 
that  she  had  not  always  thought  highly  of  his  powers  of  self- 
defence  in  the  past.  But  there  was  a  proud  and  sensitive  instinct 
in  him  which  both  told  him  that  he  could  not  have  done  dilferently 
and  forbade  him  to  explain. 

"You  have  come  from  London  to-day?"  said  Mrs.  Boyce, 
changing  the  subject.  All  intimate  and  personal  conversation 
was  distasteful  to  her,  and  she  admitted  few  responsibilities. 
Her  daughter  hardly  counted  among  them. 

"Yes;  London  is  hard  at  work  cabinet-making,"  he  said,  trying 
to  smile.     "  I  must  get  back  to-night." 

"  I  don't  know  how  you  could  be  spared,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce. 

He  paused ;  then  he  broke  out :  "  When  a  man  is  in  the  doubt 
and  trouble  I  am,  he  must  be  spared.  Indeed,  since  the  night  of 
the  trial,  I  feel  as  though  I  had  been  of  very  little  use  to  any 
human  being." 

He  spoke  simply,  but  every  word  touched  her.  What  an  incon- 
ceivable entanglement  the  whole  thing  was !  Yet  she  was  no 
longer  merely  contemptuous  of  it. 

"  Look  !  "  she  said,  lifting  a  bit  of  black  stuif  from  the  ground 
beside  the  chair  which  held  the  envelope ;  "  she  is  already  making 
the  mourning  for  the  children.     I  can  see  she  despairs." 

He  made  a  sound  of  horror. 

"Can  you  do  nothing?"  he  cried  reproachfully.  "To  think  of 
her  dwelling  upon  this  —  nothing  but  this,  day  and  night  —  and  I, 
banished  and  powerless  !  " 

He  buried  his  head  in  his  hands. 

"  No,  I  can  do  nothing,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  deliberately.  Then, 
after  a  pause,  "  You  do  not  imagine  thei'e  is  any  chance  of  success 
for  her  ?  " 

He  looked  up  and  shook  his  head. 

"  The  Radical  papers  are  full  of  it;  as  you  know.  Wharton  is 
managing  it  with  great  ability,  and  has  got  some  good  supporters 
in  the  House.  But  I  happened  to  see  the  judge  the  day  before 
yesterday,  and  I  certainly  gathered  from  him  that  the  Home  Office 
was  likely  to  stand  firm.  There  may  be  some  delay.  The  new 
ministry  will  not  kiss  hands  till  Saturday.  But  no  doubt  it  will 
be  the  first  business  of  the  new  Home  Secretary.  —  By  the  way,  I 
had  rather  Marcella  did  not  hear  of  my  seeing  Judge  Cartwright," 


CHAP.  XIV  MARCELLA  285 

he  added  hastily  —  almost  imploringly.  "  I  could  not  bear  that 
she  should  suppose  —  " 

Mrs.  Boyce  thought  to  herself  indignantly  that  she  never  could 
have  imagined  sucli  a  man  in  such  a  plight. 

"  I  must  go,"  he  said,  rising.  "  "Will  you  tell  her  from  me,"  he 
added  slowly,  "  that  I  could  never  have  believed  she  would  be  so 
unkind  as  to  let  me  come  down  from  London  to  see  her,  and  send 
me  away  empty — without  a  word?" 

"  Leave  it  to  my  discretion,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  smiling  and  look- 
ing up.  "  Oh,  by  the  way,  she  told  me  to  thank  you.  Mr.  ^Vharton, 
in  his  letter  this  morning,  mentioned  that  you  had  given  him  two 
introductions  which  were  important  to  him.  She  specially  wished 
you  to  be  thanked  for  it." 

His  exclamation  had  a  note  of  impatient  contempt  that  Mrs. 
Boyce  was  genuinely  glad  to  hear.  In  her  opinion  he  was  much 
too  apt  to  forget  that  the  world  yields  itself  only  to  the  "violent." 

He  walked  away  from  the  house  without  once  looking  back. 
Maxcella,  from  her  window,  watched  him  go. 

"How  could  she  see  him?"  she  asked  herself  passionately,  both 
then  and  on  many  other  occasions  during  these  rushing,  ghastly 
days.  His  turn  would  come,  and  it  should  be  amply  given  him. 
But  now  the  very  thought  of  that  half-hour  in  Lord  Maxwell's 
library  threw  her  into  wild  tears.  The  time  for  entreaty  —  for 
argument — was  gone  by,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned.  He  might 
have  been  her  champion,  and  would  not.  She  threw  herself  reck- 
lessly, madly  into  the  encouragement  and  support  of  the  man  who 
had  taken  up  the  task  which,  in  her  eyes,  should  have  been  her 
lover's.  It  had  become  to  her  ajight  —  with  society,  with  the  law, 
with  Aldous — in  which  her  whole  nature  was  absorbed.  In  the 
course  of  the  fight  she  had  realised  Aldous's  strength,  and  it  was 
a  bitter  offence  to  her. 

How  little  she  could  do  after  all !  She  gathered  together  all  the 
newspapers  that  were  debating  the  case,  and  feverishly  read  every 
line ;  she  wrote  to  Wharton,  commenting  on  what  she  read,  and 
on  his  letters ;  she  attended  the  meetings  of  the  Reprieve  Com- 
mittee which  had  been  started  at  Widrington ;  and  she  passed 
hours  of  every  day  with  Minta  Hurd  and  her  children.  She 
would  hardly  speak  to 'Mary  Harden  and  the  rector,  because  they 
had  not  signed  the  petition,  and  at  home  her  relations  with  her 
father  were  much  strained.  Mr.  Boyce  was  awakening  to  a  good 
deal  of  alarm  as  to  how  things  might  end.  He  might  not  like 
the  Raeburns,  but  that  anything  should  come  in  the  way  of  his 
daughter's  match  was,  notwithstanding,  the  very  last  thing  in  the 
world,  as  he  soon  discovered,  that  he  really  desired.  During  six 
mouths  he  had  taken  it  for  granted ;  so  had  the  county.     He,  of 


286  MAECELLA  book  ii 

all  men,  could  not  afford  to  be  made  ridiculous,  apart  from  the 
solid,  the  extraordinary  advantages  of  the  matter.  He  thought 
Marcella  a  foolish,  unreasonable  girl,  and  was  not  the  less  in  a 
panic  because  his  wife  let  him  understand  that  he  had  had  a  good 
deal  to  do  with  it.  So  that  between  him  and  his  daughter  there 
were  now  constant  sparrings  —  sparrings  which  degraded  Marcella 
in  her  own  eyes,  and  contributed  not  a  little  to  make  her  keep 
away  from  home. 

The  one  place  where  she  breathed  freely,  wliere  the  soul  had 
full  course,  was  in  Minta  Kurd's  kitchen.  Side  by  side  with  that 
piteous  plaintive  misery,  her  own  fierceness  dwindled.  She  would 
sit  with  little  Willie  on  her  knees  in  the  dusk  of  the  spring  even- 
ings, looking  into  tlie  fire,  and  crying  silently.  She  never  sus- 
pected that  her  presence  was  often  a  burden  and  constraint,  not 
only  to  the  sulky  sister-in-law,  but  to  the  wife  herself.  While 
Miss  Boyce  was  there  the  village  kept  away ;  and  Mrs.  Hurd  was 
sometimes  athirst,  without  knowing  it,  for  homelier  speech  and 
simpler  consolations  than  any  Marcella  could  give  her. 

The  last  week  arrived.  Wharton's  letters  grew  more  uncertain 
and  despondent ;  the  Radical  press  fought  on  with  added  heat  as 
the  cause  became  more  desperate.  On  Monday  the  wife  went  to 
see  the  condemned  man,  who  told  her  not  to  be  so  silly  as  to  im- 
agine there  was  any  hope.  Tuesday  niglit,  Wharton  asked  his  last 
question  in  Parliament.    Friday  was  the  day  fixed  for  the  execution. 

The  question  in  Parliament  came  on  late.  The  Home  Secre- 
tary's answer,  though  not  final  in  form,  was  final  in  substance. 
Wharton  went  out  immediately  and  wrote  to  Marcella.  "  She 
will  not  sleep  if  I  telegraph  to-night,"  he  thought,  with  that 
instinct  for  detail,  especially  for  physical  detail,  which  had  in  it 
something  of  the  woman.  But,  knowing  that  his  letter  could  not 
reach  her  by  the  early  post  with  the  stroke  of  eight  next  morning, 
he  sent  out  his  telegram,  that  she  might  not  learn  the  news  first 
from  the  papers. 

Marcella  had  wandered  out  before  breakfast,  feeling  the  house 
an  oppression,  and  knowing  that,  one  way  or  another,  the  last 
news  might  reach  her  any  hour. 

She  had  just  passed  through  the  little  wood  behind  and  along- 
side of  the  house,  and  was  in  a  field  beyond,  when  she  heard  some 
one  running  behind  her.  William  handed  her  the  telegram,  his 
own  red  face  full  of  understanding.  Marcella  took  it,  commanded 
herself  till  the  boy  was  out  of  sight  and  hearing  again,  then  sank 
down  on  the  grass  to  read  it. 

"  AU  over.  The  Home  Secretary's  official  refusal  to  interfere 
with  sentence  sent  to  Widrington  to-day.  Accept  my  sorrow  and 
sympathy." 


CHAP.  XIV  MARCELLA  287 

She  crushed  it  in  her  hand,  raising  her  liead  mechanically. 
Before  her  lay  that  same  shallow  cup  of  ploughed  land  stretching 
from  her  father's  big  wood  to  the  downs,  on  the  edge  of  which 
Hurd  had  plied  his  ferrets  in  the  winter  nights.  But  to-day  the 
spring  worked  in  it,  and  breathed  upon  it.  The  young  corn  was 
already  green  in  the  furrows  ;  the  hazel-catkins  quivered  in  the 
hedge  above  her ;  larks  were  in  the  air,  daisies  in  the  grass,  and  the 
march  of  sunny  clouds  could  be  seen  in  tlie  flying  shadows  they 
flung  on  the  pale  greens  and  sheeny  pui'ples  of  the  wide  treeless 
basin. 

Human  helplessness,  human  agony  —  set  against  the  careless 
joy  of  nature  —  there  is  no  new  way  of  feeling  these  things.  But 
not  to  have  felt  them,  and  with  the  mad,  impotent  passion  and 
outcry  which  filled  Marcella's  heart  at  this  moment,  is  never  to 
have  risen  to  the  full  stature  of  our  kind. 

"  Marcella,  it  is  my  strong  wish  —  my  command  —  that  you  do 
not  go  out  to  the  village  to-night." 

"  I  must  go,  papa." 

It  was  Thursday  night  —  the  night  before  the  Friday  morning 
fixed  for  Kurd's  execution.  Dinner  at  Mellor  was  just  over.  Mr. 
Boyce,  who  was  standing  in  front  of  the  fire,  unconsciouslj^  making 
the  most  of  his  own  inadequate  height  and  size,  looked  angrily  at 
his  stately  daughter.  She  had  not  appeared  at  dinner,  and  she 
was  now  dressed  in  the  long  black  cloak  and  black  hat  she  had 
worn  so  constantly  in  the  last  few  weeks.  Mr.  Boyce  detested 
the  garb. 

"  You  are  making  yourself  ridiculous,  Marcella.  Pity  for  these 
wretched  people  is  all  very  well,  but  you  have  no  business  to  carry 
it  to  such  a  point  that  you  —  and  we  —  become  the  talk,  the 
laughing-stock  of  the  county.  And  I  should  like  to  see  you,  too, 
pay  some  attention  to  Aldous  Raeburn's  feelings  and  wishes." 

The  admonition,  in  her  father's  mouth,  would  almost  have 
made  her  laugh,  if  she  could  have  laughed  at  anything.  But, 
instead,  she  only  repeated : 

"  I  must  go,  I  have  explained  to  mamma." 

"Evelyn!  why  do  you  permit  it?"  cried  Mr.  Boyce,  turning 
aggressively  to  his  wife. 

"Marcella  explained  to  me,  as  she  truly  said,"  replied  ]\Irs. 
Boyce,  looking  up  calmly.  "  It  is  not  her  habit  to  ask  permission 
of  any  one." 

"  Mamma,"  exclaimed  the  girl,  in  her  deep  voice,  "  you  would 
not  wish  to  stop  me  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  after  a  pause,  "  no.  You  have  gone  so 
far,  I  understand  you  wish  to  do  this.     Richard,"  —  she  got  up 


288  MARCELLA  book  n 

and  went  to  him,  —  "don't  excite  yourself  about  it;  shall  I  read 
to  you,  or  play  a  game  with  you  V  " 

He  looked  at  her,  trembling  with  anger.  But  her  quiet  eye 
warned  him  that  he  had  had  threatenings  of  pain  that  afternoon. 
His  anger  sank  into  fear.  He  became  once  more  irritable  and 
abject. 

"  Let  her  gang  her  gait,"  he  said,  throwing  himself  into  a  chair. 
"  But  I  tell  you  I  shall  not  put  up  with  this  kind  of  thing  much 
longer,  Marcella." 

"I  shall  not  ask  you,  papa,"  she  said  steadily,  as  she  moved 
towards  the  door.  Mrs.  Boyce  paused  where  she  stood,  and  looked 
after  her  daughter,  struck  by  her  words.  Mr.  Boyce  simply  took 
them  as  referring  to  the  marriage  which  would  emancipate  her 
before  long  from  any  control  of  his,  and  fumed,  without  finding  a 
reply. 

The  maid-servant  who,  by  Mrs.  Boyce's  orders,  was  to  accom- 
pany Marcella  to  the  village,  was  already  at  the  front  door.  She 
carried  a  basket  containing  invalid  food  for  little  Willie,  and  a 
lighted  lantern. 

It  was  a  dark  night  and  raining  fast.  Marcella  was  fastening  up 
her  tweed  skirt  in  the  hall,  when  she  saw  Mrs.  Boyce  hurry  along 
the  gallery  above,  and  immediately  afterwards  her  mother  came 
across  the  hall  to  her. 

"  You  had  better  take  the  shawl,  Marcella :  it  is  cold  and  raw. 
If  you  are  going  to  sit  up  most  of  the  night  you  will  want  it." 

She  put  a  wraj)  of  her  own  across  Marcella's  arm. 

"  Your  father  is  quite  right,"  she  went  on.  "  You  have  had  one 
horrible  experience  to-day  already  —  " 

"  Don't,  mamma !  "  exclaimed  INIarcella,  interrupting  her.  Then 
suddenly  she  threw  her  arms  round  her  mother. 

"  Kiss  me,  mamma !  please  kiss  me !  " 

Mrs.  Boyce  kissed  her  gravely,  and  let  herself  even  linger 
a  moment  in  the  girl's  strong  hold. 

"  You  are  extraordinarily  wilful,"  she  said.  "  And  it  is  so 
strange  to  me  that  you  think  you  do  any  good.  Are  you  sure 
even  that  she  wants  to  have  you?" 

Marcella's  lip  quivered.  She  could  not  speak,  apparently. 
Waving  her  hand  to  her  mother,  she  joined  the  maid  waiting 
for  her,  and  the  two  disapjieared  into  the  blackness. 

"  But  does  it  do  any  good  ?  "  Mrs.  Boyce  repeated  to  herself  as 
she  went  back  to  the  drawing-room.  "  Sympathy !  who  was  ever 
yet  fed,  warmed,  comforted  by  sympathy?  Marcella  robs  that 
woman  of  the  only  thing  that  the  human  being  should  want  at 
such  a  moment  —  solitiide.  Why  should  we  force  on  the  poor 
wh^t  to  us  would  be  an  outi-ngf '^"' 


CHAP.  XIV  MARCELLA  289 

Meanwhile  Marcella  battled  through  the  wind  and  rain,  thank- 
ful that  the  warm  spring  burst  was  over,  and  that  the  skies  no 
longer  mocked  this  horror  which  was  beneath  them. 

At  the  entrance  to  the  village  .she  stopped,  and  took  the  basket 
from  the  little  maid. 

"  Now,  Ruth,  you  can  go  home.  Run  quick,  it  is  so  dark, 
Ruth ! " 

"  Yes,  miss." 

The  young  country  girl  trembled.  Miss  Boyce's  tragic  passion 
in  this  matter  had  to  some  extent  infected  the  whole  household  in 
which  she  lived. 

"  Ruth,  when  you  say  your  prayers  to-night,  pray  God  to  com- 
fort the  poor, —  and  to  punish  the  cruel!  " 

"  Yes,  miss,"  said  the  girl,  timidly,  and  ready  to  cry.  The  lan- 
tern she  held  flashed  its  light  on  Miss  Boyce's  white  face  and  tall 
form.  Till  her  mistress  turned  away  she  did  not  dare  to  move ; 
that  dark  eye,  so  wide,  full,  and  living,  roused  in  her  a  kind  of 
terror. 

On  the  steps  of  the  cottage  Mai'cella  paused.  She  heard  voices 
inside  —  or  rather  the  rector's'  voice  reading. 

A  thought  of  scorn  rose  in  her  heart.  "  How  long  will  the 
poor  endure  this  religion  —  this  make-believe  —  which  preaches 
■patience,  patience !  when  it  ought  to  be  urging  war?" 

But  she  went  in  softly,  so  as  not  to  interrupt.  The  rector 
looked  up  and  made  a  grave  sign  of  the  head  as  she  entered  ;  her 
own  gesture  forbade  any  other  movement  in  the  group ;  she  took 
a  stool  beside  Willie,  whose  makeshift  bed  of  chairs  and  pillows 
stood  on  one  side  of  the  fire ;  and  the  reading  went  on. 

Since  Minta  Hurd  had  returned  with  Marcella  from  VVidrington 
Gaol  that  afternoon,  she  had  been  so  ill  that  a  doctor  had  been 
sent  for.  He  had  bade  them  make  up  her  bed  downstairs  in  the 
warm  ;  and  accordingly  a  mattress  had  been  laid  on  the  settle,  and 
she  was  now  stretched  upon  it.  Her  huddled  form,  the  stai'ing 
whiteness  of  the  narrow  face  and  closed  eyelids,  thrown  out  against 
the  dark  oak  of  the  settle,  and  the  disordered  mass  of  grizzled  hair, 
made  the  centre  of  the  cottage. 

Beside  her  on  the  floor  sat  Mary  Harden,  her  head  bowed  over 
the  rough  hand  she  held,  her  eyes  red  with  weeping.  Fronting 
them,  beside  a  little  table,  which  held  a  small  paraffin  lamp,  sat 
the  young  rector,  his  Testament  in  his  hand,  his  slight  boy's  figure 
cast  in  sharp  shadow  on  the  cottage  wall.  He  had  placed  himself 
so  as  to  screen  the  crude  light  of  the  lamp  from  the  wife's  eyes ; 
and  an  old  skirt  had  been  hung  over  a  chair  to  keep  it  from  little 
Willie.  Between  mother  and  child  sat  Ami  MuUiiis,  rocking  her- 
self to  and  fro  over  the  fire,  and  groaning  from  time  to  time — a 
u 


290  MARCELLA  book  ii 

shapeless  sullen  creature,  brutalised  by  many  children  and  much 
poverty —  of  whom  Marcella  was  often  impatient. 

^^And  he  said,  Lord,  remember  me  zohen  Thou  earnest  into  Thy  King- 
dom. And  He  said  unto  him.  Verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  To-day  shalt 
thou  he  with  Me  in  Paradise." 

The  rector's  voice,  in  its  awed  monotony,  dwelt  insistently  on 
each  word,  then  paused.  "  To-day,"  whispered  Mary,  caressing 
Minta's  hand,  while  the  tears  streamed  down  her  cheeks;  "he  re- 
pented, Minta,  and  the  Lord  took  him  to  Himself  —  at  once — for- 
giving all  his  sins." 

Mrs.  Hurd  gave  no  sign,  but  the  dark  figure  on  the  other  side 
of  the  cottage  made  an  involuntary  movement,  which  threw  down 
a  fire-iron,  and  sent  a  start  through  Willie's  wasted  body.  The 
reader  resumed ;  but  perfect  spontaneity  was  somehow  lost  both 
for  him  and  for  Mary.  Marcella's  stormy  presence  worked  in 
them  both,  like  a  troubling  leaven. 

Nevertheless,  the  priest  went  steadily  through  his  duty,  dwell- 
ing on  every  pang  of  the  Passion,  putting  together  every  sacred 
and  sublime  word.  For  centuries  on  centuries  his  brethren  and 
forerunners  had  held  up  the  Man  of  Sorrows  before  the  anguished 
and  the  dying ;  his  turn  had  come,  his  moment  and  place  in  the 
marvellous  never-ending  task ;  he  accepted  it  with  the  meek  ardour 
of  an  undoubting  faith. 

^'And  all  the  multitudes  that  came  together  to  this  sight,  when  they 
beheld  the  things  that  loere  done,  returned,  smiting  their  breasts." 

He  closed  the  book,  and  bent  forward,  so  as  to  bring  his  voice 
close  to  the  wife's  ear. 

"So  He  died  —  the  Sinless  and  the  Just  —  for  you,  for  your  hus- 
band. He  has  passed  through  death  —  through  cruel  death;  and 
where  He  has  gone,  we  poor,  weak,  stained  sinners  can  follow, — 
holding  to  Him.  No  sin,  however  black,  can  divide  us  from  Him, 
can  tear  us  from  His  hand  in  the  dark  waters,  if  it  be  only  re- 
pented,—  thro\\Ti  upon  His  Cross.  Let  us  pray  for  your  husband, 
let  us  implore  the  Lord's  mercy  this  night  —  this  horn- !  —  upon  his 
soul." 

A  shudder  of  remembrance  passed  through  Marcella.  Tlie  rec- 
tor knelt;  Mrs.  Hurd  lay  motionless,  save  for  deep  gasps  of  strug- 
gling breath  at  intervals ;  Ann  Mullins  sobbed  loudlj'^ ;  and  Mary 
Harden  wept  as  she  prayed,  lost  in  a  mystical  vision  of  the  Lord 
Himself  among  them  —  there  on  the  cottage  floor  —  stretching 
hands  of  pity  over  the  woman  beside  her,  showing  His  marred  side 
and  brow. 

Marcella  alone  sat  erect,  her  whole  being  one  passionate  protest 
against  a  faith  which  could  thus  heap  all  the  crimes  and  responsi- 
bilities of  this  too  real  earth  on  the  shadowy  head  of  one  far-off 


CHAP.    XIV 


MARCELLA  291 


Redeemer.  "  This  very  man  who  prays,"  she  thought,  "  is  in  some 
sort  an  accomplice  of  those  who,  after  tempting,  are  now  destroy- 
ing, and  killing,  because  they  know  of  nothing  better  to  do  witii 
the  life  tliey  themselves  have  made  outcast." 

And  she  hardened  her  heart. 

When  the  spoken  prayer  was  over,  Mr.  Harden  still  knelt  on 
silently  for  some  minutes.  So  did  Mary.  In  the  midst  of  the  husli, 
Marcella  saw  the  boy's  eyes  unclose.  He  looked  with  a  sort  of  remote 
wonder  at  his  mother  and  the  figures  beside  her.  Then  suddenly 
the  gaze  became  eager,  concrete ;  he  sought  for  something.  Her 
eye  followed  his,  and  she  perceived  in  the  shadow  beside  him,  on  a 
broken  chair  placed  behind  the  rough  screen  which  had  been  made 
for  him,  the  four  tiny  animals  of  pinched  paper  Wharton  had  once 
fashioned.  She  stooped  noiselessly  and  moved  the  chair  a  little 
forward  that  he  might  see  them  better.  The  child  with  difficulty 
turned  his  wasted  head,  and  lay  with  his  skeleton  hand  under  his 
cheek,  staring  at  his  treasures  —  his  little  all  —  with  just  a  gleam, 
a  faint  gleam,  of  that  same  exquisite  content  which  had  fascinated 
AVharton.  Then,  for  the  first  time  that  day,  Marcella  could  have 
wept. 

At  last  the  rector  and  his  sister  rose. 

"  God  be  with  you,  Mrs.  Hurd,"  said  Mr.  Harden,  stooping  to 
her ;  "  God  support  you !  " 

His  voice  trembled.     Mrs.  Hurd  in  bewilderment  looked  up. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Harden !  "  she  cried  with  a  sudden  wail.  "  Mr. 
Harden !  " 

Mary  bent  over  her  with  tears,  trying  to  still  her,  speaking  again 
with  quivering  lips  of  "  the  dear  Lord,  the  Saviour." 

The  rector  turned  to  Marcella. 

"  You  are  staying  the  night  with  her  ?  "  he  asked,  under  his 
breath. 

"Yes.  Mrs.  Mullins  was  up  all  last  night.  I  offered  to  come 
to-night." 

"  You  went  with  her  to  the  prison  to-day,  I  believe?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Did  you  see  Hurd  ?  " 

"  For  a  very  few  minutes." 

"  Did  you  hear  anything  of  his  state  of  mind?"  he  asked  anx- 
iously.    "  Is  he  penitent?  " 

"  He  talked  to  me  of  Willie,"  she  said  —  a  fierce  humanness  in 
her  unfriendly  eyes.  "1  promised  him  that  when  the  child  died, 
he  should  be  buried  respectably  —  not  by  the  parish.  And  I  told 
him  I  would  always  look  after  the  little  girls." 

The  rector  sighed.  He  moved  away.  Then  unexpectedly  he 
came  back  again. 


292  MAKCELLA  book  n 

"  I  must  say  it  to  you,"  he  said  firmly,  but  still  so  low  as  not  to 
be  heard  by  any  one  else  in  the  cottage.  "  You  are  taking  a  great 
responsibility  here  to-night.  Let  me  implore  you  not  to  fill  that 
poor  woman  with  thoughts  of  bitterness  and  revenge  at  such  a 
moment  of  her  life.  That  you  feel  bitterly,  I  know.  Mary  has 
explained  to  me  —  but  ask  yourself,  I  beg  of  you !  — how  is  she  to 
be  helped  through  her  misery,  either  now  or  in  the  future,  except 
by  patience  and  submission  to  the  will  of  God  ?  " 

He  had  never  made  so  long  a  speech  to  this  formidable  parish- 
ioner of  his,  and  his  young  cheek  glowed  with  the  effort. 

"  You  must  leave  me  to  do  what  I  think  best,"  said  Marcella, 
coldly.  She  felt  herself  wholly  set  free  from  that  sort  of  moral 
compulsion  which  his  holiness  of  mind  and  character  had  once 
exerted  upon  her.  That  hateful  opinion  of  his,  which  Mary  had 
reported,  had  broken  the  spell  once  for  all. 

Mai-y  did  not  venture  to  kiss  her  friend.  They  all  went.  Ann 
Mullins,  who  was  dropping  as  much  with  sleep  as  grief,  shuffled 
off  last.  When  she  was  going,  Mrs.  Hurd  seemed  to  rouse  a  little, 
and  held  her  by  the  skirt,  saying  incoherent  things. 

"Dear  Mrs.  Hurd,"  said  Marcella,  kneeling  down  beside  her, 
"  won't  you  let  Ann  go  ?  1  am  going  to  spend  the  night  here, 
and  take  care  of  you  and  Willie." 

Mrg.  Hurd  gave  a  painful  start. 

"  You're  very  good,  miss,"  she  said  half-consciously,  "  very  good, 
I'm  sure.  But  she's  his  own  flesh  and  blood  is  Ann  —  his  own 
flesh  and  blood.     Ann  !  " 

The  two  women  clung  together,  the  rough,  ill-tempered  sister-in- 
law  muttering  what  soothing  she  could  think  of.  When  she  was 
gone,  Minta  Hurd  turned  her  face  to  the  back  of  the  settle  and 
moaned,  her  hands  clenched  under  her  breast. 

Marcella  went  about  her  preparations  for  the  night.  "  She  is 
extremely  weak,"  Dr.  Clarke  had  said  ;  "  the  heart  in  such  a  state 
she  may  die  of  syncope  on  very  small  provocation.  If  she  is  to 
spend  the  night  in  crying  and  exciting  herself,  it  will  go  hard  with 
her.     Get  her  to  sleep  if  you  possibly  can." 

And  he  had  left  a  sleeping  draught.  Marcella  resolved  that  she 
would  persuade  her  to  take  it.  "  But  I  will  wake  her  before  eight 
o'clock,"  she  thought.  "  No  human  being  has  the  right  to  rob  her 
of  herseK  through  that  last  hour." 

And  tenderly  she  coaxed  Minta  to  take  the  doctor's  "  medicine." 
Minta  swallowed  it  submissively,  asking  no  questions.  But  the 
act  of  taking  it  roused  her  for  the  time,  and  she  would  talk.  She 
even  got  up  and  tottered  across  to  Willie. 

"  Willie  !  —  Willie  !  —  Oh !  look,  miss,  he's  got  his  animals  — 
he  don't  think  of  nothing  else.     Oh,  Willie !  won't  you  think  of 


CHAr.  XIV  MARCELLA  293 

your  father?  —  you'll  never  have  a  father,  Willie,  not  after 
to-night !  " 

The  boy  was  startled  by  her  appearance  there  beside  him  —  his 
haggard,  dishevelled  mother,  with  the  dews  of  perspiration  stand- 
ing on  the  face,  and  her  black  dress  thrown  open  at  the  throat 
and  breast  for  air.  He  looked  at  her,  and  a  little  frown  lined  the 
white  brow.  But  he  did  not  speak.  Marcella  thought  he  was  too 
weak  to  speak,  and  for  an  instant  it  struck  her  with  a  thrill  of 
girlisli  fear  that  he  was  dying  then  and  there  —  that  night  —  that 
hour.  But  when  she  had  half  helped,  half  forced  Mrs.  Hurd  back 
to  bed  again,  and  had  returned  to  him,  his  eyelids  had  fallen,  he 
seemed  asleep.  The  fast,  whistling  breath  was  much  the  same  as 
it  had  been  for  days ;  she  reassured  herself. 

And  at  last  the  wife  slept  too.  The  narcotic  seized  her.  The 
aching  limbs  relaxed,  and  all  was  still.  Marcella,  stooping  over 
her,  kissed  the  shoulder  of  her  dress  for  very  joy,  so  grateful  to 
every  sense  of  the  watcher  was  the  sudden  lull  in  the  long  activity 
of  anguish. 

Then  she  sat  down  in  the  rocking  chair  by  the  fire,  yielding 
herself  with  a  momentary  relief  to  the  night  and  the  silence.  The 
tall  clock  showed  that  it  was  not  yet  ten.  She  had  brought  a 
book  with  her,  and  she  drew  it  upon  her  knee ;  but  it  lay 
unopened. 

A  fretting,  gusty  wind  beat  against  the  window,  with  occasional 
rushes  of  rain.  Marcella  shivered,  though  she  had  built  up  the 
fire,  and  put  on  her  cloak. 

A  few  distant  sounds  from  the  village  street  round  the  corner, 
the  chiming  of  the  church. clock,  the  crackling  of  the  fire  close 
beside  her  —  she  heard  everything  there  was  to  hear,  with  unusual 
sharpness  of  ear,  and  imagined  more. 

All  at  once  restlessness,  or  some  undefined  impression,  made  her 
look  round  her.  She  saw  that  the  scanty  baize  curtain  was  only 
half-drawn  across  one  of  the  windows,  and  she  got  up  to  close  it. 
Fresh  from  the  light  of  the  lamp,  she  stared  through  the  panes 
into  the  night  without  at  first  seeing  anything.  Then  there 
flashed  out  upon  the  dark  the  door  of  a  public-house  to  the  right, 
the  last  in  the  village  road.  A  man  came  out  stumbling  and 
reeling ;  the  light  within  streamed  out  an  instant  on  the  road 
and  the  common ;  then  the  pursuing  rain  and  darkness  fell  upon 
him. 

She  was  drawing  back  when,  with  sudden  horror,  she  perceived 
something  else  close  beside  her,  pressing  against  the  window.  A 
woman's  face!  —  the  powerful  black  and  white  of  it  —  the  strong 
aquiline  features  —  the  inad  keenness  of  the  look  were  all  plain  to 
her.     The  eyes  looked  in  hungrily  at  the  prostrate  form  on  the 


294  MARCELLA  book  ii 

settle  —  at  the  sleeping  child.  Another  figure  appeared  out  of  the 
dark,  running  up  the  path.  There  was  a  slight  scuffle,  and  voices 
outside.  Marcella  drew  the  curtain  close  with  a  hasty  hand,  and 
sat  down  hardly  able  to  breathe.  The  woman  who  had  looked  in 
was  Isabella  Westall.  It  was  said  that  she  was  becoming  more 
and  more  difficult  to  manage  and  to  watch. 

Marcella  was  some  time  in  recovering  herself.  That  look,  as  of 
a  sleepless,  hateful  eagerness,  clung  to  the  memory.  Once  or 
twice,  as  it  haunted  her,  she  got  up  again  to  make  sure  that  the 
door  was  fast. 

The  incident,  with  all  it  suggested,  did  but  intensify  the  horror 
and  struggle  in  which  the  girl  stood,  made  her  mood  more  strained, 
more  piercingly  awake  and  alert.  Gradually,  as  the  hours  passed, 
as  all  sounds  from  without,  even  that  of  the  wind,  died  away, 
and  the  silence  settled  round  her  in  ever-widening  circles,  like 
deep  waters  sinking  to  repose,  Marcella  felt  herself  a  naked  soul, 
alone  on  a  wide  sea,  with  shapes  of  pain  and  agony  and  I'evolt. 
She  looked  at  the  sleeping  wife.  "  He,  too,  is  probably  asleep," 
she  thought,  remembering  some  information  which  a  kindly 
warder  had  given  her  in  a  few  jerky,  well-meant  sentences,  while 
she  was  waiting  doWnstairs  in  the  gaol  for  Minta  Hiird.  "  In- 
credible!  only  so  many  hours,  minutes  left  —  so  far  as  any  mortal 
knorvs  —  of  living,  thinking,  recollecting,  of  all  that  makes  us 
something  as  against  the  nothing  of  death  —  and  a  man  wastes 
them  in  sleep,  in  that  which  is  only  meant  for  the  ease  and  repair 
of  the  daily  struggle.  And  Minta  —  her  husband  is  her  all  —  to- 
morrow she  will  have  no  husband  ;  yet  she  sleeps,  and  I  have 
helped  to  make  her.  Ah !  Nature  may  well  despise  and  trample 
on  us;  there  is  no  reason  in  us  —  no  dignity!  Oh,  why  are  we 
here  —  why  am  /  here  —  to  ache  like  this  —  to  hate  good  people 
like  Charles  Harden  and  Mary  —  to  refuse  all  I  could  give  —  to 
madden  myself  over  pain  I  can  never  help  ?  I  cannot  help  it,  yet 
I  cannot  forsake  it ;  it  drives,  it  clings  to  me !  " 

She  sat  over  the  fire,  Willie's  hand  clasped  in  hers.  He  alone 
in  this  forlorn  household  loved  her.  Mrs.  Hurd  and  the  other 
children  feared  and  depended  on  her.  This  creature  of  thistle- 
down— this  little  thread  and  patch  of  humanity  —  felt  no  fear  of 
her.  It  was  as  though  his  weakness  divined  through  her  harsh- 
ness and  unripeness  those  maternal  and  protecting  powers  with 
which  her  nature  was  in  truth  so  richly  dowered.  He  confided 
himself  to  her  with  no  misgivings.  He  was  at  ease  when  she  was 
there. 

Little  piteous  hand !  —  its  touch  was  to  her  symbolic,  imperative. 

Eight  months  had  she  been  at  Mellor?  And  that  Marcella,  who 
had  been  living  and  moving  amid  these  woods  and  lanes  all  this 


ciiAi'.   XIV  MARCELLA  2l)o 

time  —  that  foolish  givl,  delighting-  in  new  grandeurs,  and  flattered 
by  Aldous  Raeburn's  attentions  —  that  hot,  ambitious  person,  who 
had  meant  to  rule  a  county  through  a  husband  — what  had  become 
of  her?  Up  to  tlie  night  of  Kurd's  death  sentence  she  had  still 
existed  in  some  sort,  with  her  obligations,  qualms,  remorses.  But 
since  then  —  every  day,  every  hour  had  been  grinding,  scorching 
her  away — fashioning  in  flame  and  fever  this  new  Marcella  who 
sat  here,  looking  impatiently  into  another  life,  which  should  know 
nothing  of  the  bonds  of  the  old. 

Ah,  yes!  —  her  thought  could  distinguish  between  the  act  and  the 
man,  between  the  man  and  his  class  ;  but  in  her  feeling  all  was 
confounded.  This  awful  growth  of  sympathy  in  her  —  strange 
ii'ony! — had  made  all  sympathy  for  Aldous  Raeburn  impossible 
to  her.  Marry  him  ?  —  no  !  no  !  —  never  !  But  she  would  make 
it  quite  easy  to  him  to  give  her  up. "  Pride  should  come  in  —  he 
should  feel  no  pain  in  doing  it.  She  had  in  her  pocket  the  letter 
she  had  received  from  him  that  afternoon.  She  had  hardly  been 
able  to  read  it.     Ear  and  heart  were  alike  dull  to  it. 

From  time  to  time  she  probably  slept  in  her  chair.  Or  else  it 
was  the  perpetual  rush  of  images  and  sensations  through  the  mind 
that  hastened  the  hours.  Once  when  the  first  streaks  of  the  March 
dawn  were  showing  through  the  curtains  Minta  Hurd  sprang  up 
with  a  loud  cry : 

"Oh,  my  God!  Jim,  Jim!  Oh,  no  I  —  take  that  off.  Oh, 
please,  sir,  please !     Oh,  for  God's  sake,  sir  !  " 

Agony  struggled  with  sleep.  INIarcella,  shuddering,  held  and 
soothed  her,  and  for  a  while  sleep,  or  rather  the  drug  in  her  veins, 
triumphed  again.  For  another  hour  or  two  she  lay  restlessly  toss- 
ing from  side  to  side,  but  unconscious. 

Willie  hai-dly  moved  all  night.  Again  and  again  Marcella  held 
beef-tea  or  milk  to  his  mouth,  and  tried  to  rouse  him  to  take  it, 
but  she  could  make  no  impression  on  the  passive  lips ;  the  sleep- 
ing serenity  of  the  brow  never  changed. 

At  last,  with  a  start,  IMarcella  looked  round  and  saw  that  the 
morning  was  fully  there.  A  cold  light  was  streaming  through 
the  curtains ;  the  fire  was  still  glowing ;  but  her  limbs  were  stiff 
and  chilled  under  her  shawl.  She  sprang  up,  horror  descending 
on  her.  Her  shaking  fingers  could  hardly  draw  out  the  watch  in 
her  belt. 

Ten  minutes  to  eight ! 

For  the  first  time  the  girl  felt  nerve  and  resolution  fail  her. 
She  looked  •at  Mrs.  Hurd  and  wrung  her  hands.  The  mother  was 
muttering  and  moving,  but  not  yet  fully  awake;  and  Willie  lay 
as  before.  Hardly  knowing  what  she  was  doing,  she  drew  the 
curtains  back,  as  though  inspiration  might  come  with  the  light. 


296  MARCELLA  book  ii 

The  rain-clouds  trailed  across  the  common ;  water  dripped  heavily 
from  the  thatch  of  the  cottage ;  and  a  few  birds  twittered  from 
some  bedraggled  larches  at  the  edge  of  the  common.  Far  away, 
beyond  and  beneath  those  woods  to  the  right,  AVidrington  lay  on 
the  plain,  with  that  high-walled  stone  building  at  its  edge.  She 
saw  everything  as  it  must  now  be  happening  as  plainly  as  though 
she  were  bodily  present  there  —  the  last  meal  —  the  pinioning  — 
the  chaplain. 

Goaded  by  the  passing  seconds,  she  turned  back  at  last  to  wake 
that  poor  sleeper  behind  her.  But  something  diverted  her.  With 
a  start  she  saw  that  Willie's  eyes  were  open. 

"Willie,"  she  said,  running  to  him,  "how  are  you,  dear?  Shall 
I  lift  your  head  a  little  ?  " 

He  did  not  answer,  though  she  thought  he  tried,  and  she  was 
struck  by  the  blueness  under  the  eyes  and  nose.  Hurriedly  she 
felt  his  tiny  feet.     They  were  quite  cold. 

"  Mrs.  Hurd ! "  she  cried,  rousing  her  in  haste ;  "  dear  Mrs. 
Hurd,  come  and  see  Willie !  " 

The  mother  sprang  up  bewildered,  and,  hurrying  across  the 
room,  threw  herself  upon  him. 

"  Willie,  what  is  it  ails  you,  dear  ?  Tell  mother !  Is  it  your 
feet  are  so  cold  ?  But  we'll  rub  them  —  we'll  get  you  warm  soon. 
And  here's  something  to  make  you  better."  Marcella  handed  her 
some  brandy.  "  Drink  it,  dear  ;  drink  it,  sweetheart !  "  Her  voice 
grew  shrill. 

"  He  can't,"  said  Marcella.  "  Do  not  let  us  plague  him;  it  is  the 
end.     Dr.  Clarke  said  it  would  come  in  the  morning." 

They  hung  over  him,  forgetting  everything  but  him  for  the 
moment  —  the  only  moment  in  his  little  life  he  came  first  even 
with  his  mother. 

There  was  a  slight  movement  of  the  hand. 

"  He  wants  his  animals,"  said  Marcella,  the  tears  pouring  down 
her  cheeks.  She  lifted  them  and  put  them  on  his  breast,  laying 
the  cold  fingers  over  them. 

Then  he  tried  to  speak. 

"  Daddy !  "  he  whispered,  looking  up  fully  at  his  mother ;  "  take 
'em  to  Daddy  !  " 

She  fell  on  her  knees  beside  him  with  a  shriek,  hiding  her  face, 
and  shaking  from  head  to  foot.  Marcella  alone  saw  the  slight, 
mysterious  smile,  the  gradual  sinking  of  the  lids,  the  shudder  of 
departing  life  that  ran  through  the  limbs. 

A  heavy  sound  swung  through  the  air  —  a  heavy  repeated  sound. 
Mrs.  Hurd  held  up  her  head  and  listened.  The  church  clock  tolled 
eight.  She  knelt  there,  struck  motionless  by  terror  —  by  recol- 
lection. 


CHAP.  XV  MARCELLA  297 

"  Oh,  Jim !  "  she  said,  under  her  breath  —  "  my  Jim !  " 
The  plaintive  tone  —  as  of  a  creatm'e  that  has  not  even  breath 
and  strength  left  wherewith  to  chide  the  fate  that  crushes  it  — 
broke  Marcella's  heart.  Sitting  beside  the  dead  son,  she  wrapped 
the  mother  in  her  arms,  and  the  only  words  that  even  her  wild 
spirit  could  find  wherewith  to  sustain  this  woman  through  the 
moments  of  her  husband's  death  were  words  of  prayer  —  the  old 
shuddering  cries  wherewith  the  human  soul  from  the  beginning 
has  thrown  itself  on  that  awful  encompassing  Life  whence  it  issued, 
and  whither  it  returns.  ' 

CHAPTER   XV 

Two  days  later,  in  tlie  afternoon,  Aldous  Raebm-n  found  himself 
at  the  door  of  jNIellor.  When  he  entered  the  drawing-room,  Mrs. 
Boyce,  who  had  heard  his  ring,  was  hurrying  away. 

"  Don't  go,"  he  said,  detaining  her  with  a  certain  peremptoriness. 
"  I  want  all  the  light  on  this  I  can  get.  Tell  me,  she  has  actually 
brought  herself  to  regard  this  man's  death  as  in  some  sort  my 
doing  —  as  something  which  ought  to  separate  us  ?  " 

Mrs.  Boyce  saw  that  he  held  an  open  letter  from  Marcella 
crushed  in  his  hand.  But  she  did  not  need  the  explanation.  She 
had  been  expecting  him  at  any  hour  throughout  the  day,  and  in 
just  this  condition  of  mind. 

"  Marcella  must  explain  for  herself,"  she  said,  after  a  moment's 
thought.  "  I  have  no  right  whatever  to  speak  for  her.  Besides, 
frankly,  I  do  not  understand  her,  and  when  I  argue  with  her  she 
only  makes  me  realise  that  I  have  no  part  or  lot  in  her  —  that  I 
never  had.  It  is  just  enough.  She  was  brought  up  away  fi'om  me. 
And  I  have  no  natural  hold.  I  cannot  help  you,  or  any  one  else, 
with  her." 

Aldous  had  been  very  tolerant  and  compassionate  in  the  past  of 
this  strange  mother's  abdication  of  her  maternal  place,  and  of  its 
probable  causes.  But  it  was  not  in  human  nature  that  he  should 
be  either  to-day.  He  resumed  his  (Questioning,  not  without  sharp- 
ness. 

"  One  word,  please.  Tell  me  something  of  what  has  happened 
since  Thursday,  before  I  see  her.  I  have  written  —  but  till  this 
morning  I  have  had  not  one  line  from  her." 

They  were  standing  by  the  window,  he  with  his  frowning  gaze, 
in  which  agitation  struggled  against  all  his  noruial  habits  of  man- 
ner and  expression,  fixed  upon  the  lawn  and  the  avenue.  She  told 
him  briefly  what  she  knew  of  Marcella's  doings  since  the  ariival 
of  Wharton's  telegram  —  of  the  night  in  the  cottage,  and  the  child's 
death.     It  was  plain  that  he  listened  with  a  shuddering  repulsion. 


298  MARCELLA  book  ii 

"  Do  you  know,"  he  exclaimed,  turning  upon  her,  "that  she  rnay 
never  recover  this  ?  Sucli  a  strain,  such  a  horror  !  rushed  upon  so 
wantonly,  so  needlessly." 

"I  understand.  You  think  that  I  have  been  to  blame?  I  do 
not  wonder.  But  it  is  not  true  — not  in  this  particular  case.  And 
anyway  your  view  is  not  mine.  Life  —  and  the  iron  of  it  —  has  to 
be  faced,  even  by  women  — perhaj^s,  most  of  all,  by  women.  But 
let  me  go  now.  Otherwise  my  husband  will  come  in.  And  I 
imagine  you  would  rather  see  Marcella  before  you  see  him  or  any 
one." 

That  suggestion  told.  He  instantly  gathered  himself  together, 
and  nervously  begged  that  she  would  send  IMarcella  to  him  at  once. 
He  could  think  of  nothing,  talk  of  nothing,  till  he  had  seen  her. 
She  went,  and  Aldous  was  left  to  walk  up  and  down  the  room 
planning  what  he  should  say.  After  the  ghastly  intermingling  of 
public  interests  and  private  misery  in  which  he  had  lived  for  these 
many  weeks  there  was  a  certain  relief  in  having  reached  the  cleared 
space  —  the  decisive  moment  —  when  he  might  at  last  give  himself 
wholly  to  what  truly  concerned  him.  He  would  not  lose  her  with- 
out a  struggle.  None  the  less  he  knew,  and  had  known  ever  since 
the  scene  in  the  Court  library,  that  the  great  disaster  of  his  life 
was  upon  him. 

The  handle  of  the  door  turned.     She  was  there. 

He  did  not  go  to  meet  her.  She  had  come  in  wrought  up  to 
face  attack — reproaches,  entreaties — ready  to  be  angry  or  to  be 
humble,  as  he  should  give  her  the  lead.  But  he  gave  her  no  lead. 
She  had  to  break  through  that  quivering  silence  as  best  she  could. 

"  I  wanted  to  explain  everything  to  you,"  she  said  in  a  low  voice, 
as  she  came  near  to  him.  "  I  know  my  note  last  night  was  very 
hard  and  abrupt.  I  didn't  mean  to  be  hard.  But  I  am  still  so 
tired  —  and  everything  that  one  says,  and  feels,  hurts  so." 

She  sank  down  upon  a  chair.  This  womanish  appeal  to  his 
pity  had  not  been  at  all  in  her  programme.  Nor  did  it  immedi- 
ately succeed.  As  he  looked  at  her,  he  could  only  feel  the  wanton- 
ness of  this  eclipse  into  which  she  had  plunged  her  youth  and  beauty. 
There  was  wrath,  a  passionate  j^rotesting  wratJi,  under  his  pain. 

"  Marcella,"  he  said,  sitting  down  beside  her,  "  did  you  read  my 
letter  that  I  wrote  you  the  day  before  —  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  And  after  that,  you  could  still  believe  that  I  was  indifferent  to 
your  grief  —  your  suffering  —  or  to  the  suffering  of  any  human 
being  for  whom  you  cared  ?     You  could  still  think  it,  and  feel  it  ?  " 

"It  was  not  what  you  have  said  all  through,"  she  replied,  look- 
ing sombrely  away  from  him,  her  chin  on  her  hand,  "  it  is  what 
you  have  done." 


CHAP.  XV  MARCELLA  299 

"What  have  I  done?"  he  said  proudly,  bending  forward  from 
his  seat  beside  her.  "  Wliat  have  I  ever  done  but  claim  from  you 
that  freedom  you  desii-e  so  passionately  for  others  —  freedom  of 
conscience  —  freedom  of  judgment  ?  You  denied  me  this  f reedou), 
though  I  asked  it  of  you  with  all  my  soul.  And  you  denied  me 
more.  Through  these  five  weeks  you  have  refused  me  the  com- 
monest right  of  love  —  the  right  to  show  you  myself,  to  prove  to 
you  that  through  all  this  misery  of  differing  opinion  —  misery, 
much  more,  oh,  much  more  to  me  than  to  you  !  —  I  was  in  truth 
bent  on  the  same  ends  with  you,  bearing  the  same  burden,  groping 
towards  the  same  goal." 

"No!  no!"  she  cried,  turning  upon  him,  and  catching  at  a 
word ;  "  what  bvirden  have  you  ever  borne  ?  I  know  you  were 
sorry  —  that  there  was  a  struggle  in  your  mind —  that  you  pitied 
me  —  pitied  ^^e?7i.  But  you  jvidged  it  all /rom  above  —  you  looked 
down  —  and  I  could  not  see  that  you  had  any  right.  It  made  me 
mad  to  have  such  things  seen  from  a  height,  when  I  was  below  — 
in  the  midst  —  close  to  the  horror  and  anguish  of  them." 

"  Whose  fault  was  it,"  he  interrupted,  "  that  I  was  not  with  you? 
Did  I  not  offer  —  entreat?  I  could  not  sign  a  statement  of  fact 
which  seemed  to  me  an  untrue  statement,  but  what  prevented  me 
—  prevented  us?  —  However,  let  me  take  that  point  first.  Would 
you,"  —  he  s2:)oke  deliberately,  "  would  you  have  had  me  put  my 
name  to  a  public  statement  which  I,  rightly  or  wrongly,  believed 
to  be  false,  because  you  asked  me  ?     You  owe  it  to  me  to  answer." 

She  could  not  escape  the  penetrating  fii-e  of  his  eye.  The  man's 
mildness,  his  quiet  self-renouncing  reserve,  were  all  burnt  up  at 
last  in  this  white  heat  of  an  accusing  passion.  In  return  she 
began  to  forget  her  own  resolve  to  bear  herself  gently. 

"You  don't  remember,"  .she  cried,  "that  what  divided  us  was 
youi"  —  your  —  incapacity  to  put  the  human  pity  first;  to  think  of 
the  surrounding  circumstances  —  of  the  debt  that  you  and  I  and 
everybody  like  us  owe  to  a  man  like  Hurd  —  to  one  who  had  been 
stunted  and  starved  by  life  as  he  had  been." 

Her  lip  began  to  tremble. 

"  Then  it  comes  to  this,"  he  said  steadily,  "  that  if  I  had  been  a 
poor  man,  you  would  have  allowed  me  my  conscience  —  my  judg- 
ment of  right  and  wrong  —  in  such  a  matter.  You  would  have 
let  me  remember  that  I  was  a  citizen,  and  that  pity  is  only  one 
side  of  justice !  You  would  have  let  me  plead  that  Hurd's  sin  was 
not  against  me,  but  against  the  community,  and  that  in  deterrftin- 
ing  whether  to  do  what  you  wished  or  no,  I  must  think  of  the 
community  and  its  good  before  even  I  thought  of  pleasing  you. 
If  I  had  possessed  no  more  than  Hiird,  all  th'is  would  have  been 
permitted  me;  but  because  of  Maxwell  Court  —  because  of  my 


300  MARCELLA  book  ii 

money"  —  she  shrank  before  the  accent  of  the  word  —  "you  re- 
fused me  the  commonest  moral  rights.  My  scruple,  my  feeling, 
were  nothing  to  you.  Your  pride  was  engaged  as  well  as  your 
pity,  and  I  must  give  way.  Marcella!  you  talk  of  justice  —  you 
talk  of  equality  —  is  the  only  man  who  can  get  neither  at  your 
hands  —  the  man  whom  you  promised  to  marry !  " 

His  voice  dwelt  on  that  last  word,  dwelt  and  broke.  He  leant 
over  her  in  his  roused  strength,  and  tried  to  take  her  hand.  But 
she  moved  away  from  him  with  a  cry. 

"It  is  no  use!  Oh,  don't  —  don't!  It  maybe  all  true.  I  was 
vain,  I  dare  say,  and  unjust,  and  hard.  But  don't  you  see  —  don't 
you  understand  —  if  we  could  take  such  different  views  of  such  a 
case  —  if  it  could  divide  us  so  deeply  —  what  chance  would  there 
be  if  we  were  married  ?  I  ought  never  —  never  —  to  have  said 
'Yes'  to  you  —  even  as  I  was  then.  But  now"  she  turned  to  him 
slowly,  "can't  you  see  it  for  yourself?  I  am  a  changed  creature. 
Certain  things  in  me  are  gone  —  gone  —  and  instead  there  is  a  fire 
—  something  driving,  tormenting  —  which  must  burn  its  way  out. 
When  I  think  of  what  I  liked  so  much  when  you  asked  me  to 
marry  you  —  being  rich,  and  having  beautiful  things,  and  dresses, 
and  jewels,  and  servants,  and  power  —  social  power  —  above  all 
that  —  I  feel  sick  and  choked.  I  couldn't  breathe  now  in  a  house 
like  Maxwell  Court.  The  poor  have  come  to  mean  to  me  the  only 
people  who  reaUy  live,  and  really  suffei:  I  must  live  with  them, 
work  for  them,  find  out  what  I  can  do  for  them.  You  must  give 
me  up  —  you  must  indeed.  Oh!  and  you  will!  You  will  be  glad 
enough,  thankful  enough,  when  —  when — you  knoiv  what  1  am!" 

He  started  at  the  words.  Where  was  the  prophetess?  He  saw 
that  she  was  lying  white  and  breathless,  her  face  hidden  against 
the  arm  of  the  chair. 

In  an  instant  he  was  on  his  knees  beside  her. 

"  MarceUa ! "  he  could  hardly  command  his  voice,  but  he  held 
her  struggling  hand  against  his  lips.  "  You  tliink  that  suffering 
belongs  to  one  class?  Have  you  really  no  conception  of  what  you 
will  be  dealing  to  me  if  you  tear  yourself  away  from  me  ?  " 

She  withdrew  her  hand,  sobbing. 

"Don't,  don't  stay  near  me!"  she  said;  "there  is  —  more  — 
there  is  something  else." 

Aldous  rose. 

"  You  mean,"  he  said  in  an  altered  voice,  after  a  pause  of  silence, 
"that  another  influence  —  another  man  —  has  come  between  us?" 

She  sat  up,  and  with  a  strong  effort  drove  back  her  weeping. 

"  If  I  could  say  to  you  only  this,"  she  began  at  last,  with  long 
pauses,  "  '  I  mistook  myself  and  my  part  in  life.  I  did  wrong,  but 
forgive  me,  and  let  me  go  for  both  our  sakes '  —  that  would  be  — 


CHAP.  XV  MARCELLA      ,  301 

well!  —  that  would  be  difficult,  —  but  easier  than  this!  Haven't 
you  understood  at  all  ?  When  —  when  Mr.  Wharton  came,  I 
began  to  see  things  very  soon,  not  in  my  own  way,  but  in  his  way. 
I  had  never  met  any  one  like  him  —  not  any  one  who  showed  me 
such  possibilities  in  myself — such  new  ways  of  using  one's  life, 
and  not  only  one's  possessions  —  of  looking  at  all  the  great  ques- 
tions. I  thought  it  was  just  friendship,  but  it  made  me  critical, 
impatient  of  everything  else.  I  was  never  myself  from  the  begin- 
ning. Then,  —  after  the  ball,"  —  he  stooped  over  her  that  he  might 
hear  her  the  more  plainly,  —  "  when  T  came  home  I  was  in  my  room 
and  I  heard  steps  —  there  are  ghost  stories,  you  know,  about  that 
part  of  the  house.  I  went  out  to  see.  Perhaps,  in  my  heart  of 
hearts  —  oh,  I  can't  tell,  I  can't  tell !  —  anyway,  he  was  there.  We 
went  into  the  library,  and  we  talked.  He  did  not  want  to  touch 
our  mai'riage,  —  but  he  said  all  sorts  of  mad  things, — and  at  last 
—  he  kissed  me." 

The  last  words  were  only  breathed.  She  had  often  pictured 
herself  confessing  these  things  to  him.  But  the  humiliation  in 
which  she  actually  found  herself  before  him  was  more  than  she 
had  ever  dreamed  of,  more  than  she  could  bear.  All  those  great 
words  of  pity  and  mercy  —  all  that  implication  of  a  moral  atmos- 
phere to  which  he  could  never  attain  —  to  end  in  this  story  !  The 
effect  of  it,  on  herseK,  rather  than  on  him,  was  what  she  had  not 
foi-eseen. 

Aldous  raised  himself  slowly. 

"  And  when  did  this  happen  ?  "  he  asked  after  a  moment. 

"I  told  you  —  the  night  of  the  ball  —  of  the  murder,"  she  said 
with  a  shiver ;  "  we  saw  Hurd  cross  the  avenue.  I  meant  to  have 
told  you  everything  at  once." 

"  And  you  gave  up  that  intention  ? "  he  asked  her,  when  he 
had  waited  a  little  for  more,  and  nothing  came. 

She  turned  upon  him  with  a  flash  of  the  old  defiance. 

"  How  could  I  think  of  my  own  affairs?  " 

"  Or  of  mine  ?  "  he  said  bitterly. 

She  made  no  answer. 

Aldous  got  up  and  walked  to  the  chimney-piece.  He  was  very 
pale,  but  his  eyes  were  bright  and  sparkling.  When  she  looked 
up.  at  him  at  last  she  saw  that  her  task  was  done.  His  scorn  — 
his  resentment —  were  they  not  the  expiation,  the  penalty  she  had 
looked  forward  to  all  along?  —  and  with  that  determination  to 
bear  them  calmly?  Yet,  now  that  they  were  there  in  front  of  her, 
they  stung. 

"So  that  —  for  all  those  weeks  —  while  you  were  letting  me 
write  as  I  did,  while  you  were  letting  me  conceive  you  and  your 
action  as  I  did,  you  had  this  on  your  mind  ?    You  never  gave  me 


302  MARCELLA  book  ii 

a  hint ;  you  let  me  plead ;  you  let  me  regard  you  as  wrapped  up  in 
the  unselfish  end ;  you  sent  me  those  letters  of  his — those  most 
misleading  letters  !  —  and  all  the  time — •" 

"But  1  meant  to  tell  you  —  I  always  meant  to  tell  you,"  she 
cried  passionately.  "I  would  never  have  gone  on  with  a  secret 
like  that  —  not  for  your  sake  —  but  for  my  own." 

"Yet  you  did  go  on  so  long,"  he  said  steadily;  "and  my  agony 
of  mind  during  those  weeks — my  feeling  towards  you  —  my  —  " 

He  broke  off,  wrestling  with  himself.  As  for  her,  she  had  fallen 
back  in  her  chair,  physically  incapable  of  anything  more. 

He  walked  over  to  her  side  and  took  up  his  hat. 

"  You  have  done  me  wrong,"  he  said,  gazing  down  upon  her. 
"I  pray  God  you  may  not  do  yourself  a  greater  wrong  in  the 
future  !  Give  me  leave  to  write  to  you  once  more,  or  to  send  my 
friend  Edward  Hallin  to  see  you.  Then  I  will  not  trouble  you 
again." 

He  waited,  but  she  could  give  him  no  answer.  Her  form  as  she 
lay  there  in  this  physical  and  moral  abasement  printed  itself  upon 
his  heart.  Yet  he  felt  no  desire  whatever  to  snatch  the  last  touch 
—  the  last  kiss  —  that  wounded  passion  so  often  craves.  Inwardly, 
and  without  words,  he  said  farewell  to  her.  She  heard  his  steps 
across  the  room;  the  door  shut;  she  was  alone  —  and  free. 


BOOK   III 


'  0  Neiguug,  sage,  wie  hast  du  so  tief 
Im  Herzen  dich  verstecket  ? 
Wer  hat  dich,  die  verborgen  schlief, 
Gewecket?" 


CHAPTER   I 

"  Don't  suppose  that  I  feel  enthusiastic  or  sentimental  about 
the  '  claims  of  Labour,' "  said  Wharton,  smiling  to  the  lady  beside 
him.  "  You  may  get  that  from  other  people,  but  not  from  me.  I 
am  not  moral  enough  to  be  a  fanatic.  My  position  is  simplicity 
itself.  When  things  are  inevitable,  I  prefer  to  be  on  the  right  side 
of  them,  and  not  on  the  wrong.  There  is  not  much  more  in  it 
than  that.  I  would  rather  be  on  the  back  of  the  'bore'  for  in- 
stance, as  it  sweeps  up  the  tidal  river,  than  the  swimmer  caught 
underneath  it." 

"  Well,  that  is  intelligible,"  said  Lady  Selina  Farrell,  looking  at 
her  neighbour,  as  she  crumbled  her  dinner-roll.  To  crumble  your 
bread  at  dinner  is  a  sign  of  nervousness,  according  to  Sydney  Smith, 
who  did  it  with  both  hands  when  he  sat  next  an  Archbishop ;  yet 
no  one  for  a  good  many  years  past  had  ^er  suspected  Lady  Selina 
of  nervousness,  though  her  powers  had  probably  been  tried  before 
now  by  the  neighbourhood  of  many  Primates,  Catholic  and  Angli- 
can. For  Lady  Selina  went  much  into  society,  and  had  begun  it 
young. 

"  Still,  you  know,"  she  resumed  after  a  moment's  pause  —  "  you 
play  enthusiasm  in  public  —  I  suppose  you  must." 

"Oh!  of  course,"  said  Wharton,  indifferently.  "  That  is  in  the 
game." 

"  Why  should  it  be  —  always  ?  If  you  are  a  leader  of  the  people, 
why  don't  you  educate  them?  My  father  says  that  bringing  feel- 
ing into  politics  is  like  making  rhymes  in  one's  account  book." 

"  Well,  when  you  have  taught  the  masses  how  not  to  feel,"  said 
Wharton,  laughing,  "  we  will  follow  your  advice.  Meanwhile  it  is 
our  brains  and  their  feelings  that  do  the  trick.  And  by  the  way, 
LTady  Selina,  are  you  always  so  cool?  If  you  saw  the  Revolution 
coming  to-morrow  into  the  garden  of  Alresford  House,  would  you 
go  to  the  balcony  and  argue?" 

"  I  devoutly  hope  there  would  be  somebody  ready  to  do  some- 
thing more  to  the  point,"  said  Lady  Seliua',  hastily.  "  But  of 
course  we  have  enthusiasms  too." 

X  306 


306  MARCELLA  book  hi 

"  What,  the  Flag  —  and  the  Throne  —  that  kind  of  thhig?" 

The  ironical  attention  wliich  Wharton  began  at  this  moment  to 
devote  to  the  selection  of  an  olive  annoyed  his  companion. 

"Yes,"  she  repeated  emphatically,  "the  Flag  and  the  Throne  — 
all  that  has  made  England  great  in  the  past.  But  we  knovv^  very 
well  that  they  are  not  your  enthusiasms." 

Wharton's  upper  lip  twitched  a  little. 

"  And  you  are  quite  sure  that  Busbridge  Towers  has  nothing  to 
do  with  it  ?  "  he  said  suddenly,  looking  round  upon  her. 

Busbridge  Towers  was  the  fine  ancestral  seat  which  belonged  to 
lyady  Selina's  father,  that  very  respectable  and  ancient  peer,  Lord 
Alresford,  whom  an  ungrateful  party  had  vmaccountably  omitted 
—  for  the  first  time  —  from  the  latest  Conservative  administration. 

"  Of  course  we  perfectly  understand,"  replied  Lady  Selina,  scorn- 
fully, "that  your  side  —  and  especially  your  Socialist  friends,  put 
down  all  that  we  do  and  say  to  greed  and  selfishness.  It  is  our 
misfortune  —  hardly  our  fault." 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Wharton,  quietly,  "I  was  only  trying  to  con- 
vince you  that  it  is  a  little  difficult  to  drive  feeling  out  of  politics. 
Do  you  suppose  our  host  succeeds?  You  perceive?  —  this  is  a 
Radical  house  —  and  a  Radical  banquet?" 

He  pushed  the  7nenu  towards  her  significantly.  Then  his  eye 
travelled  with  its  usual  keen  rapidity  over  the  room,  over  the 
splendid  dinner-table,  with  its  display  of  flowers  and  plate,  and 
over  the  assembled  guests.  He  and  Lady  Selina  were  dining  at 
the  hospitable  board  of  a  certain  rich  manufacturer,  who  drew 
enormous  revenues  from  the  west,  had  formed  part  of  the  Radical 
contingent  of  the  last  Liberal  ministry,  and  had  especially  distin- 
guished himself  by  a  series  of  uncompromising  attacks  on  the 
ground  landlords  of  London. 

Lady  Selina  sighed. 

"  It  is  all  a  horrible  tangle,"  she  said,  "  and  what  the  next  tvrenty 
years  will  bring  forth  who  can  tell?  Oh !  one  moment,  Mr.  Whar- 
ton, before  I  forget.     Are  you  engaged  for  Saturday  week?" 

He  drew  a  little  note-book  out  of  his  pocket  and  consulted  it. 
It  appeared  that  he  was  not  engaged. 

"  Then  will  you  dine  with  us  ? "  She  lightly  mentioned  the 
names  of  four  or  five  distinguished  guests,  including  the  Conserva- 
tive Premier  of  the  day.  Wharton  made  her  a  little  ceremonious 
bow. 

"  I  shall  be  delighted.     Can  you  trust  me  to  behave?  " 

Lady  Selina's  smile  made  her  his  match  for  the  moment. 

"  Oh !  we  can  defend  ourselves  !  "  she  said.  "  By  the  way  I  think 
you  told  me  that  Mr.  Raeburn  was  not  a  friend  of  yours." 

"  No,"  said  Wharton,  facing  her  look  with  coolness.     "  If  you 


CHAP.  I  MARCELLA  307 

have  asked  Mr.  Raeburn  for  the  23rd,  let  me  crave  your  leave  to 
cancel  that  note  in  my  pocket-book.  Not  for  my  sake,  you  under- 
stand, at  all." 

She  had  difficulty  in  concealing  her  curiosity.  But  his  face 
betrayed  nothing.  It  always  seemed  to  her  that  his  very  dark  and 
straight  eyebrows,  so  obtrusive  and  unusual  as  compared  with  the 
delicacy  of  the  features,  of  the  fair  skin  and  light  brown  curls, 
made  it  easy  for  him  to  wear  any  mask  he  pleased.  By  their  mere 
physical  emphasis  they  drew  attention  away  from  the  subtler  and 
more  revealing  things  of  expression. 

"  They  say,"  she  went  on,  "  that  he  is  sure  to  do  well  in  the 
House,  if  only  he  can  be  made  to  take  interest  enough  in  the  party. 
But  one  of  his  admirers  told  me  that  he  was  not  at  all  anxious  to 
accept  this  post  they  have  just  given  him.  He  only  did  it  to  please 
his  grandfather.  My  father  thinks  Lord  Maxwell  much  aged  this 
year.  He  is  laid  up  now,  with  a  chill  of  some  sort,  I  believe.  Mr. 
Raeburn  will  have  to  make  haste  if  he  is  to  have  any  career  in  the 
Commons.  But  you  can  see  he  cares  very  little  about  it.  All  his 
friends  tell  me  they  find  him  changed  since  that  unlucky  affair 
last  year.     By  the  way,  did  you  ever  see  that  girl?" 

"  Certainly.  T  was  staying  in  her  father's  house  while  the  en- 
gagement was  going  on." 

"  Were  you  ! "  said  Lady  Selina,  eagerly,  "  and  what  did  you 
think  of  her?" 

"  Well,  in  the  first  place,"  said  Wharton,  slowly,  "  she  is  beauti- 
ful —  you  knew  that  ?  " 

Lady  Selina  nodded. 

"Yes.  Miss  Raeburn,  who  has  told  me  most  of  what  I  know, 
always  throws  in  a  shrug  and  a  '  but '  when  you  ask  about  her  looks. 
However,  I  have  seen  a  photograph  of  her,  so  I  can  judge  for  my- 
self. It  seemed  to  me  a  beauty  that  men  perhaps  would  admire 
more  than  women." 

Wharton  devoted  himself  to  his  green  peas,  and  made  no  reply. 
Lady  Selina  glanced  at  him  sharply.  She  herself  was  by  no  means 
a  beauty.  But  neither  was  she  plain.  She  had  a  long,  rather 
distinguished  face,  with  a  marked  nose  and  a  wide  thin-lipped 
mouth.  Her  plentiful  fair  hair,  a  little  dull  and  ashy  in  colour, 
was  heaped  up  above  her  forehead  in  infinitesimal  curls  and  rolls 
which  did  great  credit  to  her  maid,  and  gave  additional  height  to 
the  head  and  length  to  a  thin  white  neck.  Her  light  blue  eyes 
were  very  direct  and  observant.  Their  expression  implied  both 
considerable  knowledge  of  the  world  and  a  natural  inquisitiveness. 
Many  persons  indeed  were  of  opinion  that  Lady  Selina  wished  to 
know  too  much  about  you  and  were  on  their  guard  when  she 
approached. 


308  MARCELLA  book  hi 

"  You  admired  her  very  much,  I  see,"  she  resumed,  as  Wharton 
still  remained  silent. 

"  Oh,  yes.  We  talked  Socialism,  and  then  I  defended  her  poacher 
for  her." 

"Oh,  I  remember.  And  it  is  really  true,  as  Miss  Raeburn  says, 
that  she  broke  it  off  because  she  could  not  get  Lord  Maxwell  and 
Mr.'  Raeburn  to  sign  the  petition  for  the  poacher  ?  " 

"  Somewhere  about  true,"  said  Wharton,  carelessly. 

"  Miss  Raeburn  always  gives  the  same  account ;  you  can  never 
get  anything  else  out  of  her.  But  I  sometimes  wonder  whether  it 
is  the  whole  truth.     You  think  she  was  sincere  ?  " 

"  Well,  she  gave  up  Maxwell  Court  and  thirty  thousand  a  year," 
he  replied  drily.  "  I  should  say  she  had  at  least  earned  the  benefit 
of  the  doubt." 

"  I  mean,"  said  Lady  Selina,  "  was  she  in  love  with  anybody 
else,  and  was  the  poacher  an  excuse?  " 

She  turned  upon  him  as  she  spoke  —  a  smiling,  self-possessed 
person  —  a  little  spoilt  by  those  hard,  inquisitive  eyes. 

"No,  I  think  not,"  said  Wharton,  throwing  his  head  back  to 
meet  her  scrutiny.  "If  so,  nothing  has  been  heard  of  him  yet. 
Miss  Boyce  has  been  at  St.  Edward's  Hospital  for  the  last  year." 

"To  learn  nursing?  It  is  what  all  the  women  do  nowadays, 
they  tell  me,  who  can't  get  on  with  their  relations  or  their  lovers. 
Do  you  suppose  it  is  such  a  very  hard  life?  " 

"  I  don't  want  to  try  1 "'  said  Wharton.     "  Do  you  ?  " 

She  evaded  his  smile. 

"  What  is  she  going  to  do  when  she  has  done  her  training?" 

"  Settle  down  and  nurse  among  the  poor,  I  believe." 

"  Magnificent,  no  doubt,  but  hardly  business,  from  her  point  of 
view.  How  much  more  she  might  have  done  for  the  poor  with 
thirty  thousand  a  year  !  And  any  woman  could  put  up  with  Aldous 
Raeburn." 

Wharton  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  We  come  back  to  those  feelings.  Lady  Selina,  you  think  so 
badly  of." 

She  laughed. 

"Well,  but  feelings  must  be  intelligible.  And  this  seems  so 
small  a  cause.    However,  were  you  there  when  it  was  broken  off  ?  " 

"No;  I  have  never  seen  her  since  the  day  of  the  poacher's 
trial." 

"Oh!  So  she  has  gone  into  complete  seclusion  from  all  her 
friends  ?  " 

"  That  I  can't  answer  for.  I  can  only  tell  you  my  own 
experience." 

Lady  Selina  bethought  herself  of  a  great  many  more  questions 


CHAP.  I  MARCELLA  309 

to  ask,  but  somehow  did  uot  ask  them.  The  talk  fell  upon  poli- 
tics, which  lasted  till  the  hostess  gave  the  signal,  and  Lady  Selina, 
gathei'ing  up  her  fan  and  gloves,  swept  from  the  room  next  after 
the  Countess  at  tlie  head  of  the  table,  while  a  host  of  elderly 
ladies,  wives  of  ministers  and  the  like,  stood  meekly  by  to  let  her 
pass. 

As  he  sat  down  again,  Wharton  made  the  entry  of  the  dinner 
at  Alresford  House,  to  which  he  had  just  promised  himself,  a  little 
plainer.  It  was  the  second  time  in  three  weeks  that  Lady  Selina 
had  asked  him,  and  he  was  well  aware  that  several  other  men  at 
this  dinner-table,  of  about  the  same  standing  and  prospects  as 
himself,  would  be  very  glad  to  be  in  his  place.  Lady  Selina, 
though  she  was  unmarried,  and  not  particularly  handsome  or  par- 
ticularly charming,  was  a  personage  —  and  knew  it.  As  the  mis- 
tress of  her  father's  various  fine  houses,  and  the  kinswoman  of  half 
the  great  families  of  England,  she  had  ample  social  opportunities, 
and  made,  on  the  whole,  clever  use  of  them.  She  was  not  exactly 
popular,  but  in  her  day  she  had  been  extremely  useful  to  many, 
and  her  invitations  were  prized.  Wharton  had  been  introduced 
to  her  at  the  beginning  of  this,  his  second  session,  had  adopted 
with  her  the  easy,  aggressive,  "  personal "  manner  —  which,  on  the 
whole,  was  his  natural  manner  towards  women  —  and  had  found  it 
immediately  successful. 

When  he  had  replaced  his  pocket-book,  he  found  himself  ap- 
proached by  a  man  on  his  own  side  of  the  table,  a  member  of 
Parliament  like  himself,  with  whom  he  was  on  moderately 
friendly  terms. 

"Your  motion  comes  on  next'  Friday,  I  think,"  said  the  new- 
comer. 

AVharton  nodded. 

" It'll  be  a  beastly  queer  division,"  said  the  other  —  "a  precious 
lot  of  cross-voting." 

"  That'll  be  the  way  with  that  kind  of  question  for  a  good  while 
to  come  —  don't  you  think"  —  said  Wharton,  smiling,  "till  we 
get  a  complete  reorganisation  of  parties?" 

As  he  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  enjoying  his  cigarette,  his  half- 
shut  eyes  behind  the  curls  of  smoke  made  a  good-humoured  but 
contemptuous  study  of  his  companion. 

Mr.  Bateson  was  a  young  manufacturer,  recently  returned  to 
Parliament,  and  newly  mai'ried.  He  had  an  open,  ruddy,  face, 
spoilt  by  an  expression  of  chronic  perplexity,  which  was  almost 
fretfulness.  Not  that  the  countenance  was  without  shrewdness; 
but  it  suggested  that  the  man  had  ambitions  far  beyond  his  powers 
of  performance,  and  ali'eady  knew  himself  to  be  inadequate. 

"  Well,  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  you  get  a  considerable  vote,"  he 


310  MARCELLA  book  hi 

resumed,  after  a  pause ;  "  it's  like  women's  suffrage.  People  will 
go  on  voting  for  this  kind  of  thing,  till  there  seems  a  chance  of 
getting  it.      Then  !  " 

"  Ah,  well !  "  said  Wharton,  easily,  "  I  see  we  shan't  get  you." 

"  I !  —  vote  for  an  eight-hours  day,  by  local  and  trade  option ! 
In  my  opinion  I  might  as  well  vote  for  striking  the  flag  on  the 
British  Empire  at  once !  It  would  be  the  death-knell  of  all  our 
prosperity." 

Wharton's  artistic  ear  disliked  the  mixture  of  metaphor,  and  he 
frowned  slightly. 

Mr.  Bateson  hurried  on.  He  was  already  excited,  and  had  fallen 
upon  Wharton  as  a  prey. 

"  And  you  really  desire  to  make  it  penal  for  us  manufacturers  — 
for  me  in  my  industry  —  in  spite  of  all  the  chances  and  changes  of 
the  market,  to  work  my  men  more  than  eight  hours  a  day  —  even 
if  they  wish  it !  " 

"  We  must  get  our  decision,  our  majority  of  the  adult  workers  in 
any  given  district  in  favour  of  an  eight-hours  day,"  said  Wharton, 
blandly ;  "  then  when  they  have  voted  for  it,  the  local  authority  wUi 
put  the  Act  in  motion." 

"And  my  men  —  conceivably  —  may  have  voted  in  the  minority 
against  any  such  tomfoolery;  yet,  when  the  vote  is  given,  it  will 
be  a  punishable  offence  for  them,  and  me,  to  work  overtime?  You 
actually  mean  that ;  how  do  you  projaose  to  punish  us  ?  " 

"Well,"  said  Wharton,  relighting  his  cigarette,  "that  is  a  much 
debated  point.  Personally,  I  am  in  favour  of  imprisonment  rather 
than  fine." 

The  other  bounded  on  his  chair. 

"  You  would  imprison  me  for  working  overtime  —  with  willing 
men ! " 

Wharton  eyed  him  with  smiling  composure.  Two  or  three  other 
men  —  an  old  general,  the  smart  private  secretary  of  a  cabinet  min- 
ister, and  a  well-known  permanent  official  at  the  head  of  one  of  the 
great  spending  departments  —  who  were  sitting  grouped  at  the  end 
of  the  table  a  few  feet  away,  stopped  their  conversation  to  listen. 

"Except  in  cases  of  emergency,  which  are  provided  for  under 
the  Act,"  said  Wharton.  "  Yes,  I  should  imprison  you,  with  the 
greatest  pleasure  in  life.  Eight  hours  plus  overtime  is  what  we  are 
going  to  stop,  at  all  hazards  !  " 

A  flash  broke  from  his  blue  eyes.  Then  he  tranquilly  7-esumed 
his  smoking. 

The  young  manufacturer  flushed  with  angry  agitation. 

"But  you  must  know,  it  is  inconceivable  that  you  should  not 
know,  that  the  whole  thing  is  stark  staring  lunacy.  In  our  busi- 
ness, trade  is  declining,  the  exports  falling  every  year,  the  impoits 


CHAP.   I  MARCELLA  311 

from  France  steadily  advancing.  And  you  are  going  to  make  us 
fight  a  country  wlieie  men  work  eleven  hours  a  day,  for  lower  wages, 
with  our  hands  tied  beliind  our  backs  by  legislation  of  this  kind  ? 
AVell,  you  know,"  he  threw  himself  back  in  his  chair  with  a  con- 
temptuous laugh,  "there  can  be  only  one  explanation.  You  and 
your  friends,  of  course,  have  banished  political  economy  to  Saturn 
—  and  you  suppose  that  by  doing  so  you  get  rid  of  it  for  all  the 
rest  of  the  world.     But  I  imagine  it  will  beat  you,  all  the  same !  " 

He  stopped  in  a  heat.  As  usual  what  he  found  to  say  was  not 
equal  to  what  he  wanted  to  say,  and  beneath  his  anger  with  Whar- 
ton was  the  familiar  fuming  at  his  own  lack  of  inipressiveness. 

"Well,  I  dare  say,"  said  Wharton,  serenely.  "However,  let's 
take  your  'political  economy'  a  moment,  and  see  if  I  can  under- 
stand what  you  mean  by  it.  There  never  were  two  words  that 
meant  all  things  to  all  men  so  disreputably !  " 

And  thereupon  to  the  constant  accompaniment  of  his  cigarette, 
and  with  the  utmost  composure  and  good  temper,  he  began  to 
"  heckle  "  his  companion,  putting  questions,  suggesting  perfidious 
illustrations,  extracting  innocent  admissions,  with  a  practised 
shrewdness  and  malice,  which  presently  left  the  unfortunate  Bate- 
son  floundering  in  a  sea  of  his  own  contradictions,  and  totally 
unable  for  the  moment  to  attach  any  rational  idea  whatever  to 
those  great  words  of  his  favourite  science,  wherewith  he  was  gener- 
ally accustomed  to  make  such  triumphant  play,  both  on  the  plat- 
form and  in  the  bosom  of  the  family. 

The  permanent  official  round  the  corner  watched  the  unequal 
fight  with  attentive  amusement.  Once  when  it  was  a  question  of 
Mill's  doctrine  of  cost  of  production  as  compared  with  that  of  a 
leading  modern  collectivist,  he  leant  forward  and  supplied  a  cor- 
rection of  something  Wharton  had  said.  Wharton  instantly  put 
down  his  cigarette  and  addressed  him  in  another  tone.  A  rapid 
dialogue  passed  between  them,  the  dialogue  of  experts,  sharp,  allu- 
sive, elliptical,  in  the  midst  of  which  the  host  gave  the  signal  for 
joining  the  ladies. 

"  Well,  all  I  know  is,"  said  Bateson,  as  he  got  up,  "  that  these 
kinds  of  questions,  if  you  and  your  friends  have  your  way,  will 
loreck  the  Liberal  party  before  long  —  far  moi'e  effectually  than 
anything  Irish  has  ever  done.  On  these  things  some  of  us  will 
fight,  if  it  must  come  to  that." 

Wharton  laughed. 

"  It  would  be  a  national  misfortune  if  you  didn't  give  us  a  stiff 
job,"  he  said,  with  an  airy  good-humour  which  at  once  made  the 
other's  blustering  look  ridiculous. 

"I  wonder  what  tliat  fellow  is  going  to  do  in  the  House,"  said 
the  permanent  official  to  his  companion  as  they  went  slowly  up- 


312  MARCELLA  book  in 

staii's,  Wharton  being  some  distance  ahead.  "  People  are  ail 
beginning  to  talk  of  him  as  a  coming  man,  though  nobody  quite 
knows  why,  as  yet.  They  tell  me  he  frames  well  in  speaking,  and 
will  probably  make  a  mark  with  his  speech  next  Friday.  But  his 
future  seems  to  me  very  doubtful.  He  can  only  become  a  power 
as  the  head  of  a  new  Labour  party.  But  where  is  the  party  ?  They 
all  want  to  be  kings.  The  best  point  in  his  favour  is  that  they  are 
likely  enough  to  take  a  gentleman  if  they  must  have  a  leader. 
But  there  still  remains  the  question  whether  he  can  make  anything 
out  of  the  material." 

"  I  hope  to  God  he  can't !  "  said  the  old  general,  grimly  ;  "  it  is 
these  town-chatterers  of  yours  that  will  bring  the  Empire  about  our 
heads  before  we've  done.  They've  begun  it  already,  wherever  they 
saw  a  chance." 

In  the  drawing-room  Wharton  devoted  himself  for  a  few  minutes 
to  his  hostess,  a  little  pushing  woman,  who  confided  to  his  appar- 
ently attentive  ear  a  series  of  grievances  as  to  the  bad  manners  of 
the  gTeat  ladies  of  their  common  party,  and  the  general  evil  plight 
of  Liberalism  in  London  from  the  social  point  of  view. 

"  Either  they  give  themselves  airs  —  rediculous  airs  !  —  or  they 
admit  everybody  !  "  she  said,  with  a  lavish  use  of  white  shoulders 
and  scarlet  fan  by  way  of  emphasis.  "My  husband  feels  it  just 
as  much  as  I  do.  It  is  a  real  misfortune  for  the  party  that  its 
social  affairs  should  be  so  villainously  managed.  Oh  !  I  dare  say 
you  don't  mind,  Mr.  Wharton,  because  you  are  a  Socialist.  But,  I 
assure  you,  those  of  us  who  still  believe  in  the  influence  of  the  best 
people  don't  like  it." 

A  point  whence  Wharton  easily  led  her  through  a  series  of  spite- 
ful anecdotes  bearing  on  her  own  social  mishaps  and  rebuffs,  which 
were  none  the  less  illuminating  because  of  the  teller's  anxious  effort 
to  give  them  a  dignified  and  disinterested  air.  Then,  when 
neither  she  nor  her  plight  were  any  longer  amusing,  he  took  his 
leave,  exchanging  another  skirmishing  word  or  two  on  the  stair- 
case with  Lady  Selina,  who  it  appeared  was  "  going  on  "  as  he  was, 
and  to  the  same  house. 

In  a  few  minutes  his  hansom  landed  him  at  the  door  of  a  great 
mansion  in  Berkeley  Square,  where  a  huge  evening  party  was  pro- 
ceeding, given  by  one  of  those  Liberal  ladies  whom  his  late  hostess 
had  been  so  freely  denouncing.  The  lady  and  the  house  belonged 
to  a  man  who  had  held  high  ofiice  in  the  late  Administration. 

As  he  made  his  way  slowly  to  the  top  of  the  crowded  stairs,  the 
stately  woman  in  white  satin  and  diamonds  who  was  "receiving" 
on  the  landing  marked  him,  and  when  his  name  was  announced 
she  came  forward  a  step  or  two.     Nothing  could  have  been  more 


CHAP.  1  MARCELLA  313 

flattering  than  the  smile  with  which  she  gave  him  her  gloved  hand 
to  touch. 

"Have  you  been  out  of  town  all  these  Sundays?"  she  said  to 
him,  with  the  slightest  air  of  soft  reproach.  "  I  am  always  at 
home,  you  know  —  I  told  you  so !  " 

She  spoke  with  the  ease  of  one  who  could  afford  to  make  what- 
ever social  advances  she  pleased.  Wharton  excused  himself,  and 
they  chatted  a  little  in  the  intervals  of  her  perpetual  greetings  to 
the  mounting  crowd.  She  and  he  had  met  at  a  famous  country 
house  in  the  Easter  recess,  and  her  aristocrat's  instinct  for  all  that 
gives  savour  and  sharpness  to  the  dish  of  life  had  marked  him  at 
once. 

"  Sir  Hugh  wants  you  to  come  down  and  see  us  in  Sussex,"  she 
said,  stretching  her  white  neck  a  little  to  speak  after  him,  as  he 
was  at  last  carried  through  the  drawing-room  door  by  the  pressure 
behind  him.     "  Will  you?" 

He  threw  back  an  answer  which  she  rather  took  for  granted  than 
heard,  for  she  nodded  and  smiled  through  it  —  stiffening  her  deli- 
cate face  the  moment  afterwards  to  meet  the  timid  remarks  of  one 
of  her  husband's  constituents  —  asked  by  Sir  Hugh  in  the  streets 
that  afternoon  —  who  happened  to  present  her  with  the  next  hand 
to  shake. 

Inside,  Wharton  soon  found  himself  brought  up  against  the 
ex-Secretary  of  State  himself,  who  greeted  him  cordially,  and  then 
bantei'ed  him  a  little  on  his  coming  motion. 

"  Oh,  I  shall  be  interested  to  see  what  you  make  of  it.  But,  you 
know,  it  has  no  actuality  —  never  can  have  —  till  you  can  agree 
among  youi'selves.  You  say  you  want  the  same  thing  —  I  dare  say 
you'll  all  swear  it  on  Friday  —  but  really  —  " 

The  statesman  shook  his  head  pleasantly. 

"  The  details  are  a  little  vague  still,  I  grant  you,"  said  Wharton, 
smiling. 

"And  you  think  the  principle  matters  twopence  without  the 
details?  I  have  always  found  that  the  difficulty  with  the  Chris- 
tian command,  '  Be  ye  perfect.'  The  principle  doesn't  trouble 
me  at  all !  " 

The  swaying  of  the  entering  throng  parted  the  two  speakers, 
and  for  a  second  or  two  the  portly  host  followed  with  his  eye  the 
fair  profile  and  lightly-built  figure  of  the  younger  man  as  they 
receded  from  him  in  the  crowd.  It  was  in  his  mind  that  the  next 
twenty  years,  whether  this  man  or  that  turned  out  to  be  important 
or  no,  must  see  an  enormous  quickening  of  the  political  pace.  lie 
himself  was  not  conscious  of  any  jealousy  of  the  younger  men ; 
but  neither  did  he  see  among  them  any  commandiug  personality. 
This  young  fellow,  with  his  vivacity,  his  energy,  and  his  Socialist 


314  MARCELLA  book  hi 

whims,  was  interesting  enough ;  and  his  problem  was  interesting 
—  the  problem  of  whether  he  could  make  a  party  out  of  the  hetero- 
geneous group  of  which  he  was  turning  out  to  be  indisputably  the 
ablest  member.  But  what  was  there  certain  or  inevitable  about  his 
future  after  all  ?  And  it  was  the  same  with  all  the  rest.  Whereas 
the  leaders  of  the  past  had  surely  announced  themselves  beyond 
mistake  from  the  beginning.  He  was  inclined  to  think,  however, 
that  we  were  levelling  up  rather  than  levelling  down.  The  world 
grew  too  clever,  and  leadership  was  more  difficult  every  day. 

Meanwhile  Wharton  found  his  progress  through  these  stately 
rooms  extremely  pleasant.  He  was  astonished  at  the  multitude  of 
people  he  knew,  at  the  number  of  faces  that  smiled  upon  him.  Pres- 
ently, after  half  an  hour  of  hard  small  talk,  he  found  himself  for  a 
moment  without  an  acquaintance,  leaning  against  an  archway  be- 
tween two  rooms,  and  free  to  watch  the  throng.  Self-love,  "  that 
frov/ard  presence,  like  a  chattering  child  within  us,"  was  all  alert 
and  happy.  A  feeling  of  surprise,  too,  which  had  not  yet  worn 
away.  A  year  befoi-e  he  had  told  Marcella  Boyce,  and  with  con- 
viction, that  he  was  an  outcast  from  his  class.  He  smiled  now  at 
that  past  naivete  which  had  allowed  him  to  take  the  flouts  of  his 
country  neighbours  and  his  mother's  unpopularity  with  her  aris- 
tocratic relations  for  an  index  of  the  way  in  which  "  society  "  in 
general  would  be  likely  to  treat  him  and  his  opinions.  He  now 
knew,  on  the  contrary,  that  those  opinions  had  been  his  best  ad- 
vertisement. Few  people,  it  appeared,  were  more  in  demand  among 
the  great  than  those  who  gave  it  out  that  they  would,  if  they  could, 
abolish  the  great. 

"  It's  because  they're  not  enough  afraid  of  us  —  yet,"  he  said  to 
himself,  not  without  spleen.  "When  we  really  get  to  business  — 
if  we  ever  do — -I  shall  not  be  coming  to  Lady  Cradock's  parties." 

"  Mr.  Wharton,  do  you  ever  do  such  a  frivolous  thing  as  go  to 
the  theatre?"  said  a  pretty,  languishing  creature  at  his  elbow,  the 
wife  of  a  London  theatrical  manager.  "  Suppose  you  come  and 
see  us  in  '  The  Minister's  Wooing,'  first  night  next  Saturday.  I've 
got  one  seat  in  my  box,  for  somebody  very  agreeable.  Only  it 
must  be  somebody  who  can  appreciate  my  frocks  !  " 

"  I  should  be  charmed,"  said  Wharton.  "  Are  the  frocks  so 
adorable  ? " 

"  Adorable  I  Then  I  may  write  you  a  note  ?  You  don't  have 
your  horrid  Parliament  that  night,  do  you?"  and  she  fluttered  on. 

"I  think  yovi  don't  know  my  younger  daughter,  Mr.  Wharton?" 
said  a  severe  voice  at  his  elbow. 

He  turned  and  saw  an  elderly  matron  with  the  usual  matronly 
cap  and  careworn  countenance  putting  forward  a  young  thing  in 
white,  to  whom  ha  bowed  with  great   ceremony.     The  lady  was 


CHAP.  I  MARCELLA  315 

the  wife  of  a  north-country  magnate  of  very  old  family,  and  one  of 
the  most  exclusive  of  her  kind  iu  London.  The  daughter,  a  vision 
of  young  shyness  and  bloom,  looked  at  him  with  frightened  eyes 
as  he  leant  against  the  wall  beside  her  and  began  to  talk.  She 
wished  he  would  go  away  and  let  her  get  to  the  girl  friend  who 
was  waiting  for  her  and  signalling  to  her  across  the  room.  But  iu 
a  minute  or  two  she  had  forgotten  to  wish  anything  of  the  kind. 
The  mixture  of  audacity  with  a  perfect  self-command  in  the  man- 
ner of  her  new  acquaintance,  that  searching  half-mocking  look, 
which  saw  everything  in  detail,  and  was  always  pressing  beyond 
the  generalisations  of  talk  and  manners,  the  lightness  and  bright- 
ness of  the  whole  aspect,  of  the  curls,  the  eyes,  the  flexible  deter- 
mined mouth,  these  things  arrested  her.  She  began  to  open  her 
virgin  heart,  first  in  protesting  against  attack,  then  in  confession, 
till  in  ten  minutes  her  white  breast  was  heaving  under  the  excite- 
ment of  her  own  temerity  and  Wharton  knew  practically  all  about 
her,  her  mingled  pleasui'e  and  remorse  in  "  going  out,"  her  astonish- 
ment at  the  difference  between  the  world  as  it  was  this  year,  and  the 
world  as  it  had  been  last,  when  she  was  still  in  the  school-room  — 
her  Sunday-school  —  her  brothers  —  her  ideals  —  for  she  was  a  little 
nun  at  heart  —  her  favourite  clergyman  —  and  all  the  rest  of  it. 

"I  say,  Wharton,  come  and  dine,  will  you,  Thursday,  at  the 
House  —  small  party  —  meet  in  my  room?" 

So  said  one  of  the  party  wdiips,  froni  behind  into  his  ear.  The 
speaker  was  a  popular  young  aristocrat  who  in  the  preceding  year 
had  treated  the  member  for  West  Bi'ookshire  with  chilliness. 
Wharton  turned  —  to  consider  a  moment — then  gave  a  smiling 
assent. 

"All  right!  "  said  the  other,  withdrawing  his  hand  from  Whar- 
ton's shoulder — "good-night!  —  two  more  of  these  beastly  crushes 
to  fight  through  till  I  can  get  to  my  bed,  woi'se  luck  !  Are  any  of 
your  fellows  here  to-night  ?" 

Wharton  shook  his  head. 

"  Too  austere,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"  A  question  of  dress  coats,  T  should  think,"  said  Wharton,  drily. 

The  other  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  And  this  calls  itself  a  party  gathering —  in  a  radical  and  demo- 
cratic house  —  what  a  farce  it  all  is  !  " 

"  Agreed !  good-night." 

And  Wharton  moved  on,  just  catching  as  he  did  so  the  eyes  of 
his  new  girl  acquaintance  looking  back  at  him  from  a  distant  door. 
Their  shy  owner  withdrew  them  instantly,  coloiu-ed,  and  passed 
out  of  sight. 

At  the  same  moment  a  guest  entered  by  the  same  door,  a  tall 
grave  nian  iu  the  prime  of  life,  but  already  grey  haired.     Wharton, 


316  MARCELLA  book  iir 

to  his  surprise,  recognised  Aldous  Raeburn,  and  saw  also  that  the 
master  of  the  house  had  him  by  the  arm.  They  came  towards 
him,  talking.  The  crowd  prevented  him  from  getting  effectually 
out  of  their  way,  but  he  turned  aside  and  took  up  a  magazine  lying 
on  a  bookcase  near. 

"  And  you  really  think  him  a  trifle  better  ?  "  said  the  ex-minister. 

"  Oh,  yes,  better — certainly  better  —  but  I  am  afraid  he  will  hardly 
get  back  to  work  this  session  —  the  doctors  talk  of  sending  him 
away  at  once." 

"  Ah,  well,"  said  the  other,  smiling,  "  we  don't  intend  it  seems  to 
let  you  send  anything  important  nY>  to  the  Lords  yet  awhile,  so 
there  will  be  time  for  him  to  recruit." 

"I  wish  I  was  confident  about  the  recruiting,"  said  Raeburn, 
sadly.  "He  has  lost  much  strength.  I  shall  go  with  them  to  the 
Italian  lakes  at  the  end  of  next  week,  see  them  settled  and  come 
back  at  once." 

"  Shall  you  miss  a  sitting  of  the  commission?"  asked  his  host. 
Both  he  and  Raeburn  were  members  of  an  important  Labour  Com- 
mission appointed  the  year  before  by  the  new  Conservative  govern- 
ment. 

"  Hardly,  I  think,"  said  Raeburn ;  "  I  am  particularly  anxious  not 
to  miss  D 's  evidence." 

And  they  fell  talking  a  little  about  the  Commission  and  the  wit- 
nesses recently  examined  before  it.  Wharton,  who  was  wedged  in 
by  a  group  of  ladies,  and  could  not  for  the  moment  move,  heard 
most  of  what  they  were  saying,  much  against  his  will.  Moreover 
Raeburn's  tone  of  quiet  and  masterly  familiarity  with  what  he  and 
his  companion  were  discussing  annoyed  him.  There  was  nothing 
in  the  world  that  he  himself  would  more  eagerly  have  accepted 
than  a  seat  on  that  Commission. 

"  Ah  !  there  is  Lady  Cradock  !  "  said  Raeburn,  perceiving  his 
hostess  across  a  sea  of  intervening  faces,  and  responding  to  her 
little  wave  of  the  hand.  "  I  must  go  and  get  a  few  words  with  her, 
and  then  take  my  aunt  away." 

As  he  made  his  way  towards  her,  he  suddenly  brushed  against 
Wharton,  who  could  not  escape.  Raeburn  looked  up,  recognised 
the  man  he  had  touched,  flushed  .slightly  and  passed  on.  A  by- 
stander would  have  supposed  them  strangers  to  each  other. 


CHAPTER  II 

Two  or  three  minutes  later,  Wharton  was  walking  down  a  side 
street  towards  Piccadilly.  After  all  the  flattering  incidents  of  the 
evening,  the  chance  meeting  with  which  it  concluded  had  jarred 


CHAP.  II  MARCELLA  317 

unpleasantly.  Confound  the  fellow !  Was  he  the  first  man  in 
the  world  who  had  been  thrown  over  by  a  girl  because  he  had  been 
discovered  to  be  a  tiresome  pedant?  For  even  supposing  Miss 
Boyce  had  described  that  little  scene  in  the  libi-avy  at  Mellor  to 
her  ^artce  at  the  moment  of  giving  him  his  dismissal  —  and  the 
year  before,  by  the  help  of  all  the  news  that  reached  him  about 
the  broken  engagement,  by  the  help  still  more  of  the  look,  or 
rather  tlie  entire  absence  of  look  wherewith  Raeburn  had  walked 
past  his  greeting  and  his  outstretclied  hand  in  a  corridor  of  the 
House,  on  the  first  occasion  of  their  meeting  after  the  news  had 
become  public  property,  Wharton  was  inclined  to  think  she  Jiad  — 
what  then  ?  Xo  doubt  the  stern  moralist  might  have  something 
to  say  on  the  subject  of  taking  advantage  of  a  guest's  position  to 
tamper  with  another  man's  betrothed.  If  so,  the  stern  moralist 
would  only  show  his  usual  incapacity  to  grasp  the  actual  facts  of 
flesh  and  blood.  What  chance  would  he  or  any  one  else  have  had 
with  Marcella  Boyce,  if  she  had  happened  to  be  in  love  with  the 
man  she  had  promised  to  marry?  That  little  trifle  had  been  left 
out  in  the  arrangement.  It  might  have  worked  through  perfectly 
well  without;  as  it  happened  it  had  broken  down.  Realities  had 
broken  it  down.     Small  blame  to  them  ! 

"  I  stood  for  truth!  "he  said  to  iiim  self  with  a  kind  of  rage  — 
"that  moment  when  I  held  her  in  the  libi'ary,  she  lived.  —  Raeburn 
offered  her  a  platform,  a  position ;  I  made  her  think,  and  feel.  I 
helped  her  to  know  herself.  Our  relation  was  not  passion;  it 
stood  on  the  threshold  —  but  it  was  real  —  a  true  relation  so  far 
as  it  went.  That  it  went  no  farther  was  due  again  to  circum- 
stances—  realities  —  of  another  kind.  That  he  should  scorn  and 
resent  my  performance  at  Mellor  is  natural  enough.  If  we  were 
in  France  he  would  call  me  out  and  I  should  give  him  satisfaction 
with  all  the  pleasure  in  life.  But  what  am  /  about?  Are  his 
ways  mine  ?  I  should  have  nothing  left  but  to  shoot  myself 
to-morrow  if  they  were  !  " 

He  walked  on  swiftly,  angrily  rating  himself  for  those  sympton^s 
of  a  merely  false  and  conventional  conscience  which  were  apt  to 
be  roused  in  him  by  contact  with  Aldous  Raeburn. 

"  Has  he  not  interfered  with  my  freedom  —  stamped  his  pedan- 
tic foot  on  me  —  ever  since  we  were  boys  together  !  I  have  owed 
him  one  for  many  years  —  now  I  have  paid  it.  Let  hiin  take  the 
chances  of  war  !  " 

Then,  driven  on  by  an  irritation  not  to  be  quieted,  he  began 
against  his  will  to  think  of  those  various  occasions  on  which  he 
and  Aldous  Raeburn  had  crossed  each  other  in  the  past  —  of  that 
incident  in  particular  which  Miss  Raeburn  had  roughly  recalled 
to  Lady  Winterbourne's  reluctant  memory. 


318  MARCELLA  book  hi 

AVell,  and  what  of  it?  It  had  occurred  when  Wharton  was  a  lad 
of  twenty-one,  and  during  an  interval  of  some  months  when  Aldous 
Raeburn,  who  had  left  Cambridge  some  three  years  before,  and  was 
already  tlie  man  of  importance,  had  shown  a  decided  disposition  to 
take  up  the  brilliant,  unmanageable  boy,  whom  the  Levens,  among 
other  relations,  had  already  washed  their  hands  of. 

"  What  did  he  do  it  for  ?  "  thought  Wharton.  "  Philanthropic 
motives  of  course.  He  is  one  of  the  men  who  must  always  be  sav- 
ing their  souls,  and  the  black  sheep  of  the  world  come  in  handy 
for  the  purpose.  I  remember  I  was  flattered  then.  It  takes  one 
some  time  to  understand  the  workings  of  the  Hebraistic  con- 
science I " 

Yes  —  as  it  galled  him  to  recollect  —  he  had  shown  great  plas- 
ticity for  a  time.  He  was  then  in  the  middle  of  his  Oxford  years, 
and  llaeburn's  letters  and  Raeburn's  influence  had  certainly  pulled 
him  through  various  scrapes  that  might  have  been  disastrous. 
Then — a  little  later  —  he  could  see  the  shooting  lodge  on  the 
moors  above  Loch  Etive,  where  he  and  Raeburn,  Lord  Maxwell, 
Miss  Raeburn,  and  a  small  party  had  spent  the  August  of  hit' 
twenty-first  birthday.  AVell  —  that  surly  keeper,  and  his  pretty 
wife  who  had  been  j\liss  Raeburn's  maid  —  could  anything  be  jnore 
inevitable?  A  hard  and  jealous  husband,  and  one  of  the  softest, 
most  sensuous  natures  that  ever  idleness  made  love  to.  The  thing 
was  in  the  air! — in  the  summer,  in  the  blood — as  little  to  be 
resisted  as  the  impulse  to  eat  when  you  are  hungry,  or  drink  when 
you  thirst.  Besides,  what  particular  harm  had  been  done,  what 
particular  harm  could  have  been  done  with  such  a  Cerberus  of  a 
husband?  As  to  the  outcry  which  liad  followed  one  special  inci- 
dent, nothing  could  have  been  more  uncalled  for,  more  superfluous. 
Aldous  had  demanded  contrition,  had  said  strong  things  with  the 
flashing  eyes,  the  set  mouth  of  a  Cato.  And  the  culprit  had  turned 
obstinate  —  would  repent  nothing  —  not  for  the  asking.  Every- 
thing was  arguable,  and  Renan's  doubt  as  to  whether  he  or  Theo- 
phile  Gautier  were  in  the  right  of  it,  would  remain  a  doubt  to  all 
time — that  was  all  Raeburn  could  get  out  of  him.  After  which 
the  Hebraist  friend  of  course  had  turned  his  back  on  the  offender, 
and  there  was  an  end  of  it. 

That  incident,  however,  had  belonged  to  a  stage  in  his  past  life, 
a  stage  marked  by  a  certain  prolonged  tumult  of  the  senses,  on 
which  he  now  looked  back  with  great  composure.  That  tunmlt 
had  found  vent  in  other  adventures  more  emphatic  a  good  deal 
than  the  adventure  of  the  keeper's  wife.  He  believed  that  one  or 
two  of  them  had  been  not  unknown  to  Raeburn. 

Well,  that  was  done  with!  His  mother's  death  —  that  wanton 
stupidity  on  the  part  of  fate  —  and  the   shock   it   had  somehow 


CHAP.  II  MARCELLA  819 

caused  him,  liad  first  drawn  him  out  of  the  slough  of  a  cheap  and 
facile  pleasure  on  which  he  now  looked  back  with  contempt. 
Afterwards,  his  two  years  of  travel,  and  the  joys  at  once  virile  and 
pure  they  had  brought  with  them,  joys  of  adventure,  bodily  en- 
durance, discovery,  together  with  the  intellectual  stimulus  which 
comes  of  perpetual  change,  of  new  heavens,  new  seas,  new  societies, 
had  loosened  the  yoke  of  the  flesh  and  saved  him  from  himself.  The 
deliverance  so  begun  had  been  completed  at  home,  by  the  various 
chances  and  opportunities  which  had  since  opened  to  him  a  solid 
and  tempting  career  in  that  Labour  movement  his  mother  had 
linked  hiiu  with,  without  indeed  ever  understanding  either  its 
objects  or  its  men.  The  attack  on  capital  now  developing  on  all 
sides,  the  planning  of  the  vast  campaign,  and  the  handling  of  its 
industrial  troops,  these  things  had  made  the  pursuit  of  women  look 
insipid,  coupled  as  they  were  with  the  thrill  of  increasing  personal 
success.  Passion  would  require  to  present  itself  in  new  forms,  if  it 
was  now  to  take  possession  of  him  again. 

As  to  his  relation  to  Raeburn,  he  well  remembered  that  when, 
after  that  long  break  in  his  life,  he  and  Aldous  had  met  casually 
again,  in  London  or  elsewhere,  Aldous  had  shown  a  certain  disposi- 
tion to  forget  the  old  quarrel,  and  to  behave  with  civility,  though 
not  with  friendliness.  As  to  Wharton  he  was  quite  willing,  though 
at  the  same  time  he  had  gone  down  to  contest  West  Brookshire, 
and,  above  all,  had  found  himself  in  the  same  house  as  Aldous 
Raeburn's  betrothed,  with  an  even  livelier  sense  than  usual  of  the 
excitement  to  be  got  out  of  mere  living. 

No  doubt  when  Raeburn  heard  that  story  of  the  library  —  if  he 
had  heard  it  —  he  recognised  in  it  the  man  and  the  character  he 
had  known  of  old,  and  had  shrunk  from  the  connection  of  both 
with  Marcella  Boyce  in  bitter  and  insurmountable  disgust.  A 
mere  Hebraist's  mistake ! 

"  That  girl's  attraction  for  me  was  not  an  attraction  of  the  senses 
—  except  so  far  that  for  every  normal  man  and  woman  charm  is 
charm,  and  ginger  is  hot  in  the  mouth  and  always  will  be !  What 
I  played  for  with  her  wfis  power  —  power  over  a  nature  that  piqued 
and  yet  by  natural  affinity  belonged  to  me.  I  could  not  have  re- 
tained that  power,'  as  it  happened,  by  any  bait  of  passion.  Even 
without  the  Hurd  affair,  if  I  had  gone  on  to  approach  her  so,  her 
whole  moral  nature  would  have  risen  against  me  and  her  own 
treachery.  I  knew  that  perfectly  well,  and  took  the  line  I  did  be- 
cause for  the  moment  the  game  was  too  exciting,  too  interesting, 
to  give  up.  For  the  moment!  then  a  few  days,  —  a  few  weeks 
later  —  Good  Lord  !  what  stuff  we  mortals  be  1 " 

And  he  raised  his  shoulders,  mocking,  yet  by  no  means  disliking 
his  own  idiosyncrasies.     It  had  been  strange,  indeed,  that  complete 


320  MARCELLA  book  hi 

change  of  mental  emphasis,  that  alteration  of  spiritual  axis  that 
had  befallen  him  within  the  first  weeks  of  his  parliamentary  life, 
nay,  even  before  the  Hurd  agitation  was  over.  That  agitation  had 
brought  him  vigorously  and  profitably  into  public  notice  at  a  con- 
venient moment.  But  what  had  originally  sprung  from  the  impulse 
to  retain  a  hold  over  a  woman,  became  in  the  end  the  instrument 
of  a  new  and  quite  other  situation.  Wharton  had  no  sooner  entered 
the  House  of  Commons  than  he  felt  himself  strangely  at  home 
there.  He  had  the  instinct  for  debate,  the  instinct  for  manage- 
ment, together  with  a  sensitive  and  contriving  ambition.  He 
found  himself  possessed  for  the  moment  of  powers  of  nervous  en- 
durance that  astonished  hitn  —  a  patience  of  boredom  besides,  a 
capacity  for  drudgery,  and  for  making  the  best  of  dull  men.  The 
omens  were  all  favourable,  sometimes  startlingly  so.  He  was  no 
longer  hampered  by  the  ill-will  of  a  county  or  a  family  connection. 
Here  in  this  new  world,  every  man  counted  strictly  for  what,  in 
the  parliamentary  sense,  he  was  worth.  Wharton  saw  that,  owing 
to  his  public  appearances  during  the  two  preceding  years,  he  was 
noticed,  listened  to,  talked  about  in  the  House,  from  the  first; 
and  that  his  position  in  the  newly-formed  though  still  loosely-bound 
Labour  party  was  one  of  indefinite  promise.  The  anxieties  and 
pitfalls  of  the  position  only  made  it  the  more  absorbing. 

The  quick,  elastic  nature  adjusted  itself  at  once.  To  some  kinds 
of  success,  nothing  is  so  important  as  the  ability  to  forget  —  to 
sweep  the  mind  free  of  everything  irrelevant  and  superfluous. 
Marcella  Boyce,  and  all  connected  with  her,  passed  clean  out  of 
Wharton's  consciousness.  Except  that  once  or  twice  he  said  to 
himself  with  a  passing  smile  that  it  was  a  good  thing  he  had  not 
got  himself  into  a  woi'se  scrape  at  Mellor.  Good  heavens  !  in  what 
plight  would  a  man  stand  —  a  man  with  his  career  to  make  —  who 
had  given  Marcella  Boyce  claims  upon  him  !  As  well  entangle  one- 
self with  the  Tragic  Muse  at  once  as  with  that  stormy,  unmanageable 
soul ! 

So  much  for  a  year  ago.  To-night,  liowever,  the  past  had  been 
thrust  back  upon  him,  both  by  Lady  Selina's  talk  and  by  the 
meeting  with  Raeburn.  To  smart  indeed  once  more  under  that 
old  ascendency  of  Raeburn's,  was  to  be  provoked  into  thinking  of 
Raeburn's  old  love. 

Where  was  Miss  Boyce?  Surely  her  year  of  hospital  training 
must  be  up  by  now? 

He  turned  into  St.  James  Street,  stopped  at  a  door  not  far  from 
the  Palace  end,  let  himself  in,  and  groped  his  way  to  the  second 
floor.  A  sleepy  man-servant  turned  out  of  his  room,  and  finding 
that  his  master  was  not  inclined  to  go  to  bed,  brought  lights  and 
mineral  water.     Wharton  was  practically  a  teetotaler.      He  had 


CHAP.  II  MARCELLA  321 

taten  a  whim  that  way  as  a  boy,  and  a  few  experiments  in  drunk- 
enness which  he  had  made  at  college  had  only  confirmed  what  had 
been  originally  perhaps  a  piece  of  notoriety-hunting.  He  had,  as  a 
rule,  flawless  health;  and  the  unaccustomed  headaches  and  nausea 
which  followed  these  occasional  excesses  had  disgusted  and  deterred 
him.  He  shook  himself  easily  free  of  a  habit  which  had  never- 
gained  a  hold  upon  him,  and  had  ever  since  found  his  abstinence  a 
source  both  of  vanity  and  of  distinction.  Nothing  annoyed  him 
more  than  to  hear  it  put  down  to  any  ethical  motive.  "If  I  liked 
the  beastly  stuff,  I  should  swim  in  it  to-morrow,"  he  would  say  with 
an  angry  eye  when  certain  acquaintance  —  not  those  he  made  at 
Labour  Congresses  —  goaded  him  on  the  point.  "As  it  is,  why 
should  I  make  it,  or  chloral,  or  morphia,  or  any  other  poison,  my 
master  !     AVhat's  the  inducement  —  eh,  you  fellows?" 

En  revanche  he  smoked  inordinately. 

"Is  that  all,  sir,"  said  his  servant,  pausing  behind  his  chair,  after 
candles,  matches,  cigarettes,  and  Apollinaris  had  been  sujiplied  in 
abundance. 

"  Yes  ;  go  to  bed,  Williams,  but  don't  lock  np.     Good-night." 

The  man  departed,  and  Wharton,  going  to  the  window  which 
opened  on  a  balcony  looking  over  St.  James  Street,  threw  it  wide, 
and  smoked  a  cigarette  leaning  against  the  wall.  It  was  on  the 
whole  a  fine  night  and  warm,  though  the  nip  of  the  east  wind  was 
not  yet  out  of  the  air.  In  the  street  below  there  was  still  a  good 
deal  of  movement,  for  it  was  only  just  past  midnight  and  the  clubs 
were  not  yet  empty.  To  his  right  the  turreted  gate-house  of  the 
Palace  with  its  clock  rose  dark  against  a  sky  covered  with  light, 
windy  cloud.  Beyond  it  his  eye  sought  instinctively  for  the  Clock 
Tower,  which  stood  to-night  dull  and  beaconless  —  like  some  one 
in  a  stupid  silence.  That  light  of  the  sitting  House  had  become  to 
him  one  of  the  standing  pleasures  of  life.  He  had  never  yet  been 
honestly  glad  of  its  extinction. 

"I'm  a  precious  raw  hand,"  he  confessed  to  himself  with  a  shake 
of  the  head  as  he  stood  there  smoking.  "  And  it  can't  last  —  noth- 
ing does." 

Presently  he  laid  down  his  cigarette  a  moment  on  the  edge  of 
the  balcony,  and,  coming  back  into  the  room,  opened  a  drawer, 
seai'ched  a  little,  and  finally  took  out  a  letter.  He  stooped  over 
the  lamp  to  read  it.  It  was  the  letter  which  Marcella  Boyce  had 
written  him  some  two  or  three  days  after  the  breach  of  her  engage- 
ment. That  fact  was  barely  mentioned  at  the  beginning  of  it, 
without  explanation  or  comment  of  any  kind.  Then  the  letter 
continued : 

"  I  have  never  yet  thanked  you  as  I  ought  for  all  that  you  have 
done  and  attempted  through  these  many  weeks'.     But  for  them  it 

T 


322  MARCELLA  book  hi 

must  have  been  plain  to  us  both  that  we  could  never  rightly  meet 
again.  I  am  very  destitute  just  now  —  and  I  cling  to  self-respect 
as  though  it  were  the  only  thing  left  me.  But  that  scene  in  the 
past,  which  put  us  both  wrong  with  honour  and  conscience,  has 
surely  been  wiped  out  —  thought  —  suffered  away.  I  feel  that  1 
dare  now  say  to  you,  as  I  would  to  any  other  co-worker  and  co- 
thinker —  if  in  the  future  you  ever  want  my  work,  if  you  can  set 
me,  with  others,  to  any  task  that  wants  doing  and  that  I  could  do 

—  ask  me,  and  I  am  not  likely  to  refuse. 

"  But  for  the  present  I  am  going  quite  away  into  another  world. 
I  have  been  more  ill  than  I  have  ever  been  in  my  life  this  last  few 
days,  and  they  are  all,  even  my  father,  ready  to  agree  with  me  that 
I  must  go.  As  soon  as  I  am  a  little  stronger  I  am  to  have  a  year's 
training  at  a  London  hospital,  and  then  I  shall  probably  live  for  a 
while  in  town  and  nurse.  This  scheme  occurred  to  me  as  I  came 
back  with  the  wife  from  seeing  Hurd  the  day  before  the  execution. 
I  kiiew  then  that  all  was  over  for  me  at  Mellor. 

"As  for  the  wretched  break-down  of  everything  —  of  all  my 
schemes  and  friendships  here  —  I  had  better  not  speak  of  it.  I 
feel  that  I  have  given  these  village-folk,  whom  I  had  promised  to 
help,  one  more  reason  to  despair  of  life.  It  is  not  pleasant  to 
carry  such  a  thought  away  with  one.  But  if  the  tool  breaks  and 
blunts,  how  can  the  task  be  done?  It  can  be  of  no  use  till  it  has 
been  re-set. 

"  I  should  like  to  know  how  your  plans  prosper.  But  I  shall  see 
your  paper  and  follow  what  goes  on  in  Parliament.  For  the  pres- 
ent I  want  neither  to  write  nor  get  letters.  They  tell  me  that  as 
a  probationer  I  shall  spend  my  time  at  first  in  washing  glasses,  and 
polishing  bath-taps,  on  which  my  mind  rests  ! 

"If  you  come  across  my  friends  of  whom  I  have  spoken  to  you 

—  Louis,  Anthony,  and  Edith  Craven  —  and  could  make  any  use 
of  Louis  for  the  Labour  Clarion,  I  should  be  grateful.  I  hear  they 
have  had  bad  times  of  late,  and  Louis  has  engaged  himself,  and 
wants  to  be  married.  Yoii  remember  I  told  you  how  we  worked 
at  the  South  Kensington  classes  together,  and  how  they  made  me 
a  Venturist  ? 

"  Yours  very  triily, 

"Marcella  Boyce." 

Wharton  laid  down  the  letter,  making  a  wry  mouth  over  some 
of  its  phrases. 

"  '  Put  us  both  ivrong  with  honour  and  conscience.''  '  One  more  rea- 
iton  for  despair  of  life'  —  ^All  tons  over  for  me  at  Mellor'  —  dear! 
dear !  —  how  women  like  the  big  words  —  the  emphatic  pose.  All 
those  little  odds  and  ends  of  charities  —  that  absurd  straw-plait- 


CHAP.  I  MARC  ELL  A  823 

ing  scheme  !  "\V«11,  perhaps  one  could  hardly  expect  her  to  show 
a  sense  of  liunioiir  just  then.  But  why  does  nature  so  often  leave 
it  out  iu  these  splendid  creatures?  " 

"Hullo !  "  he  added,  as  he  bent  over  the  table  to  look  for  a  pen ; 
"  why  didn't  that  idiot  give  me  tliese  ?  " 

For  there,  under  an  evening  paper  which  he  had  not  touched, 
lay  a  pile  of  unopened  ietters.  His  servant  had  forgotten  to  point 
them  out  to  him.  On  the  top  was  a  letter  on  which  A\'hai-ton 
pounced  at  once.  It  was  addressed  in  a  bold  inky  hand,  and  he 
took  it  to  be  fi-om  Neheniiah  Wilkins,  M.P.,  his  former  colleague 
at  the  Birmingham  Labour  Congress,  of  late  a  member  of  the 
Labour  Clarion  staff,  and  as  such  a  daily  increasing  plague  and 
anxiety  to  the  Clarion's  proprietor. 

However,  the  letter  was  not  from  AVilkins.  It  was  from  the 
secretary  of  a  Midland  trades-union,  with  whom  Wharton  had 
already  been  in  communication.  The  union  was  recent,  and  rep- 
resented the  as  3'et  feeble  organisation  of  a  mental  industry  in 
process  of  transition  from  the  home-workshop  to  the  full  factory, 
or  Great  Industry  stage.  The  conditions  of  work  were  extremely 
bad,  and  grievances  many ;  wages  were  low,  and  local  distress  very 
great.  The  secretary,  a  young  man  of  ability  and  enthusiasm, 
wrote  to  Wharton  to  say  that  certain  alterations  in  the  local 
"payment  lists  "  lately  made  by  the  employers  amounted  to  a  re- 
duction of  wages;  that  the  workers,  beginning  to  feel  the  hearten- 
ing effects  of  their  union,  were  determined  not  to  submit;  that 
bitter  and  even  desperate  agitation  was  spreading  fast,  and  that  a 
far-reaching  strike  was  imminent.  Could  they  count  on  the  sup- 
port of  the  Clarion?  'Tlie  Clarion  had  already  published  certain 
letters  on  the  industry  from  a  Special  Commissioner  —  letters 
which  had  drawn  public  attention,  and  had  been  eagerly  read  in 
the  district  itself.  Would  the  Clarion  now  "  go  in  "  for  them  ? 
Would  Mr.  Wharton  personally  support  them,  in  or  out  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  get  his  friends  to  do  the  same?  To  which  questions, 
couched  in  terms  extremely  flattering  to  the  power  of  the  Clarion 
and  its  owner,  the  secretary  appended  a  long  and  technical  state- 
ment of  the  situation. 

Wharton  looked  up  from  the  letter  with  a  kindling  eye.  He 
foresaw  an  extremely  effective  case,  both  for  the  newspaper  and 
the  House  of  Commons.  One  of  the  chief  capitalists  involved  was 
a  man  called  Denny,  who  had  been  long  in  the  House,  for  whom 
the  owner  of  the  Clarion  entertained  a  strong  personal  dislike. 
Denny  had  thwarted  him  vexatiously  —  had  perhaps  even  made 
him  ridiculous  —  on  one  or  two  occasions;  and  Wharton  saw  no 
reason  whatever  for  forgiving  one's  enemies  until,  like  Narvaez, 
one  had  "  shot  them  all."     There  would  be  mu'ch  satisfaction  in 


324  MARCELLA  book  hi 

making  Denny  understand  who  were  his  masters.  And  with  these 
motives  there  mingled  a  perfectly  genuine  sympathy  with  the 
"  poor  devils  "  in  question,  and  a  desire  to  see  them  righted. 

"  Somebody  must  be  sent  down  at  once,"  he  said  to  himself. 
"  I  suppose,"  he  added,  with  discontent,  "it  must  be  Wilkins." 

For  the  man  who  had  written  the  articles  for  the  Labour 
Clarion,  as  Special  Commissioner,  had  some  three  weeks  before 
left  England  to  take  command  of  a  colonial  newspaper. 

Still  pondering,  he  took  up  the  other  letters,  turned  them  over 
—  childishly  pleased  for  the  thousandth  time  by  the  IM.P.  on  each 
envelope  and  the  number  and  variety  of  his  correspondence  —  and 
eagerly  chose  out  three  —  one  from  his  bankers,  one  from  his  Lin- 
colnshire agent,  and  one  from  the  Clarion  office,  undoubtedly  this 
time  in  Wilkins's  hand. 

He  read  them,  grew  a  little  pale,  swore  under  his  breath,  and, 
angrily  flinging  the  letters  away  from  him,  he  took  up  his  cigarette 
again  and  thought. 

The  letter  from  his  bankers  asked  his  attention  in  stiff  terms  to 
a  largely  overdrawn  account,  and  entirely  declined  to  advance  a 
sum  of  money  for  which  he  had  applied  to  them  without  the 
guarantee  of  two  substantial  names  in  addition  to  his  own.  The 
letter  from  his  agent  warned  him  that  the  extraordinary  drought 
of  the  past  six  weeks,  together  with  the  general  agricultural 
depression,  would  certainly  mean  a  large  remission  of  rents  at 
the  June  quarter  day,  and  also  informed  him  that  the  holders 
of  his  co-operative  farm  would  not  be  able  to  pay  their  half- 
yearly  interest  on  the  capital  advanced  to  them  by  the  landlord. 

As  to  the  third  letter,  it  was  in  truth  much  more  serious  than 
the  two  others.  Wilkins,  the  passionate  and  suspicious  workman, 
of  great  natural  ability,  who  had  been  in  many  ways  a  thorn  in 
Wharton's  side  since  the  beginning  of  his  public  career,  was  now 
member  for  a  mining  constituency.  His  means  of  support  were 
extremely  scanty,  and  at  the  opening  of  the  new  Parliament 
Wharton  had  offered  him  well-paid  work  on  the  Clarion  news- 
paper. It  had  seemed  to  the  proprietor  of  the  Clarion  a  way 
of  attaching  a  dangerous  man  to  himself,  perhaps  also  of  con- 
trolling him.  Wilkins  had  grudgingly  accepted,  understanding 
perfectly  well  what  was  meant. 

Since  then  the  relation  between  the  two  men  had  been  one  of 
perpetual  friction.  Wilkins's  irritable  pride  would  yield  nothing, 
either  in  the  House  or  in  the  Clarion  office,  to  Wliarton's  university 
education  and  class  advantages,  while  Wharton  watched  with  alarm 
the  growing  influence  of  this  insubordinate  and  hostile  member  of 
his  own  staff  on  those  labour  circles  from  which  the  Clarion  drew 
its  chief  support. 


CHAP.  II  MARCELLA  326 

In  the  letter  he  had  just  read  Wilkins  announced  to  the  proprie- 
tor of  the  Clarion  that  in  consequence  of  the  "  scandalous  misman- 
agement "  of  that  paper's  handling  of  a  certain  trade  arbitration 
which  had  just  closed,  he,  Wilkins,  could  no  longer  continue  to 
write  for  it,  and  begged  to  terminate  his  engagement  at  once,  there 
being  no  formal  agreement  between  himself  and  Wharton  as  to 
length  of  notice  on  either  side.  A  lively  attack  on  the  present  man- 
agement and  future  prospects  of  the  Clarion  followed,  together  with 
the  threat  that  the  writer  would  do  what  in  him  lay  henceforward 
to  promote  the  cause  of  a  certain  rival  organ  lately  started,  among 
sucli  working  men  as  he  might  be  able  to  influence. 

"  Brute  I  jealous,  impracticable  brute !  "  exclaimed  Wharton  aloud, 
as  he  stood  chafing  and  smoking  by  the  window.  All  the  diffi- 
culties which  this  open  breach  was  likely  to  sow  in  his  path  stood 
out  before  him  in  clear  relief. 

'■'■Personal  leadership,  there  is  the  whole  problem,"  he  said  to 
himself  in  moody  despair.  "Can  I  —  like  Parnell  —  make  a  party 
and  keep  it  together  ?  Can  I  through  the  Clarion  —  and  through 
influence  outside  the  House  —  coerce  the  men  in  the  House?  If  so, 
we  can  do  something,  and  Lady  Cradock  will  no  longer  throw  me 
her  smiles.  If  not,  the  game  is  up,  both  for  me  and  for  them. 
They  have  no  cohesion,  no  common  information,  no  real  power. 
Without  leaders  they  are  a  mere  set  of  half-educated  firebrands 
whom  the  trained  mind  of  the  country  humours  because  it  must, 
and  so  far  as  they  have  brute  force  behind  them.  Without  leader- 
ship, 1  am  a  mere  unit  of  the  weakest  group  in  the  House.  Yet, 
by  Jove  !  it  looks  as  though  I  had  not  the  gifts." 

And  he  looked  back  with  passionate  chagrin  on  the  whole  course 
of  his  connection  with  Wilkins,  his  unavailing  concessions  and  small 
humiliations,  his  belief  in  his  own  tact  and  success,  all  the  time  that 
the  man  dealt  with  was  really  slipping  out  of  his  hands. 

"  Damn  the  fellow !  "  he  said  at  last,  flinging  his  cigarette  away. 
"Well,  that's  done  with.  All  the  same,  he  would  have  liked  that 
Midland  job  !  He  has  been  hankering  after  a  strike  there  for  some 
time,  and  might  have  ranted  as  he  pleased.  I  shall  have  the  satis- 
faction of  informing  him  he  has  lost  his  opportunity.  Now  then 
—  who  to  send?     By  Jove!  what  about  Miss  Boyce's  friend?" 

He  stood  a  moment  twisting  the  quill-pen  he  had  taken  up,  then 
he  hastily  found  a  sheet  of  paper  and  wrote  : 

"  Dear  Miss  Boyce,  —  It  is  more  than  a  year  since  I  have  heard 
of  you,  and  I  have  been  wondering  with  much  interest  lately 
whether  you  have  really  taken  up  a  nursing  life.  You  remember 
speaking  to  me  of  your  friends  the  Cravens?  I  come  across  tliem 
sometimes  at  the  Venturist  meetings,  and  have  always  admired 
their  ability.     Last  year  I  could  do  nothing  practical  to  meet  your 


326  MAKCELLA  book  iii 

wishes.  This  year,  however,  there  is  an  opening  on  the  Clarion, 
and  I  should  like  to  discuss  it  with  you.  Are  you  in  town  or  to 
be  found?  I  could  come  any  afternoon  next  week,  early  —  I  go 
down  to  the  House  at  four  —  or  on  Saturdays.  But  I  should  like 
it  to  be  Tuesday  or  Wednesday,  that  I  might  try  and  persuade  you 
to  come  to  our  Eight  Hours  debate  on  Friday  night.  It  would  in- 
terest you,  and  I  think  I  could  get  you  a  seat.  We  Labour  mem- 
bers are  like  the  Irishmen  —  we  can  always  get  our  friends  in. 

"  I  must  send  this  round  by  Mellor,  so  it  may  not  reach  you  till 
Tuesday.  Perhaps  you  will  kindly  telegraph.  The  Clarion  mat- 
ter is  pressing. 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

"  H.  S.  Wharton." 

When  he  had  finished  he  lingered  a  moment  over  the  letter,  the 
play  of  conflicting  motives  and  memories  bringing  a  vague  smile 
to  the  lips. 

Reverie,  however,  was  soon  dispersed.  He  recollected  his  other 
correspondents,  and  springing  up  he  began  to  pace  his  room, 
gloomily  thinking  over  his  money  difficulties,  which  were  many. 
He  and  his  mother  had  always  been  in  want  of  money  ever  since 
he  could  remember.  Lady  Mildred  would  spend  huge  sums  on 
her  various  crotchets  and  campaigns,  and  then  subside  for  six 
months  into  wretched  lodgings  in  a  back  street  of  Southsea  or 
Worthing,  while  the  Suffolk  house  was  let,  and  her  son  mostly 
went  abroad.  This  perpetual  worry  of  needy  circumstances  had 
always,  indeed,  sat  lightly  on  Wharton.  He  was  unmarried,  and 
so  far  scarcity  had  generally  passed  into  temporary  comfort  before 
he  had  time  to  find  it  intolerable.  But  now  the  whole  situation 
was  becoming  more  serious.  In  the  first  place,  his  subscriptions 
and  obligations  as  a  member  of  Parliament,  and  as  one  of  the  few 
propertied  persons  in  a  moneyless  movement,  were  considerable. 
Whatever  Socialism  might  make  of  money  in  the  future,  he  was 
well  aware  that  money  in  the  present  was  no  less  useful  to  a 
Socialist  politician  than  to  any  one  else.  In  the  next  place,  the 
starting  and  pushing  of  the  Clarion  newspaper  —  originally  pur- 
cliased  by  the  help  of  a  small  legacy  from  an  uncle  —  had  enor- 
mously increased  the  scale  of  his  money  transactions  and  the  risks 
of  life. 

How  was  it  that,  with  all  his  efforts,  the  Clarion  was  not  mak- 
ing, but  losing  money?  During  the  three  years  he  had  possessed 
it  he  had  raised  it  fi-ora  the  position  of  a  small  and  foul-mouthed 
print,  indifferently  nourished  on  a  series  of  small  scandals,  to  that 
of  a  Labour  organ  of  some  importance.  He  had  written  a  weekly 
signed  article  for  it,  which  had  served  from  the  beginning  to  bring 


CHAP.  II  MARCELLA  '  327 

both  him  and  the  paper  into  notice;  he  had  taken  pains  with  the 
organisation  and  improvement  of  the  staff ;  above  all,  he  had  spent 
a  great  deal  more  money  npon  it,  in  the  way  of  premises  and  appli- 
ances, than  he  had  been,  as  it  turned  out,  in  any  way  justified  in 
spending. 

Hence,  indeed,  these  tears.  Rather  more  than  a  year  before, 
while  the  Clarion  was  still  enjoying  a  first  spurt  of  success  and 
notoriety,  he  had,  with  a  certain  recklessness  which  belonged  to 
his  character,  invested  in  new  and  costly  machinery,  and  had 
transferred  the  paper  to  larger  offices.  All  this  had  been  done 
on  borrowed  money. 

Then,  for  some  reason  or  other,  the  Clarion  had  ceased  to  answer 
to  the  spur  —  had,  indeed,  during  the  past  eight  months  been  flag- 
ging heavily.  The  outside  world  was  beginning  to  regard  the 
Clarion  as  an  important  paper.  Wharton  knew  all  the  time  that 
its  advertisements  were  falling  off,  and  its  circulation  declining. 
Why?  Who  can  say?  If  it  is  true  that  books  have  their  fates, 
it  is  still  more  true  of  newspapers.  Was  it  that  a  collectivist  paper 
—  the  rival  organ  mentioned  by  Wilkins  —  recently  started  by  a 
group  of  young  and  outrageously  clever  Venturists  and  more 
closely  in  touch  than  the  Clarion  with  two  or  three  of  the  great 
unions,  had  filched  the  Clarion's  ground?  Or  was  it  simply  that, 
as  Wharton  put  it  to  himself  in  moments  of  rage  and  despond- 
ency, the  majority  of  Avorking  men  "  are  either  sots  or  blockheads, 
and  will  read  and  support  )iolhing  but  the  low  racing  or  police- 
court  news,  which  is  all  their  intelligences  deserve  ?  "  Few  people 
had  at  the  bottom  of  their  souls  a  more  scornful  distrust  of  the 
"masses "than  the  man  whose  one  ambition  at  the  present  mo- 
ment was  to  be  the  accepted  leader  of  English  labour. 

Finally,  his  private  expenditure  had  always  been  luxurious; 
and  he  was  liable,  it  will  be  seen,  to  a  kind  of  debt  that  is  not 
easily  kept  waiting.  On  the  whole,  his  bankers  had  behaved  to 
him  with  great  indulgence. 

He  fretted  and  fumed,  turning  over  plan  after  plan  as  he  walked, 
his  curly  head  sunk  in  his  shoulders,  his  hands  behind  his  back. 
Presently  he  stopped  —  absently  —  in  front  of  the  inner  wall  of  the 
room,  where,  above  a  heavy  rosewood  bookcase,  brought  from  his 
Lincolnshire  house,  a  number  of  large  framed  photographs  were 
hung  close  together. 

His  eye  caught  one  and  brightened.  With  an  impatient  gesture, 
like  that  of  a  reckless  boy,  he  flung  his  thoughts  away  from  him. 

"If  ever  the  game  becomes  too  tiresome  here,  why,  the  next 
steamer  will  take  me  out  of  it !  What  a  gorgeous  time  we  had  on 
that  glacier !  " 

He  stood  looking  at  a  splendid  photograph  of  a  glacier  in  the 


328  MARCELLA  book  hi 

Thibetan  Himalayas,  where,  in  the  year  following  his  mother's 
death,  he  had  spent  four  months  with  an  exploring  party.  The 
plate  had  caught  the  very  grain  and  glisten  of  the  snow,  the  very 
sheen  and  tint  of  the  ice.  He  could  feel  the  azure  of  the  sky,  the 
breath  of  the  mountain  wind.  The  man  seated  on  the  ladder  over 
that  bottomless  crevasse  was  himself.  And  there  were  the  guides, 
two  fi'om  Chamounix,  one  from  Grindelwald,  and  that  fine  young- 
fellow,  the  son  of  the  elder  Chamounix  guide,  whom  they  had  lost 
by  a  stone-shower  on  that  nameless  peak  towering  to  the  left  of  the 
glacier.  Ah,  those  had  been  years  of  life,  those  Wanderjdhre!  He 
ran  over  the  photographs  with  a  kind  of  greed,  his  mind  mean- 
while losing  itself  in  covetous  memories  of  foamy  seas,  of  long, 
low,  tropical  shores  with  their  scattered  palms,  of  superb  rivers 
sweeping  with  sound  and  fury  round  innumerable  islands,  of  great 
buildings  ivory  white  amid  the  wealth  of  creepers  which  had  pulled 
them  into  ruin,  vacant  now  for  ever  of  the  voice  of  man,  and  I'inged 
by  untrodden  forests. 

" '  Better  fifty  years  of  Europe  than  a  cycle  of  Cathay,' "  he 
thought.  "  Ah  !  but  how  much  did  the  man  who  wrote  that  know 
about  Cathay?" 

And  with  his  hands  thrust  into  his  pockets,  he  stood  lost  awhile 
in  a  flying  dream' that  defied  civilisation  and  its  cares.  How  well, 
how  indispensable  to  remember,  that  beyond  these  sweltering 
streets  where  we  choke  and  swarm,  Cathay  stands  always  waiting ! 
Somewhere,  while  we  toil  in  the  gloom  and  the  crowd,  there  is  air, 
there  is  sea,  the  joy  of  the  sun,  the  life  of  the  body,  so  good,  so 
satisfying  !  This  interminable  ethical  or  economical  battle,  these 
struggles  selfish  or  altruistic,  in  which  we  shout  ourselves  hoarse  to 
no  purpose  —  why  !  they  could  be  shaken  off  at  a  moment's  notice ! 

"  However  "  —  he  turned  on  his  heel  —  "  suppose  we  try  a  few 
other  trifles  first.  What  time?  those  fellows  won't  have  gone  to 
bed  yet ! " 

He  took  out  his  watch,  then  extinguished  his  candles,  and  made 
his  way  to  the  street.  A  hundred  yards  or  so  away  from  his  own 
door  he  stopped  before  a  well-known  fashionable  club,  extremely 
small,  and  extremely  select,  where  his  mother's  brother,  the  peer 
of  the  family,  had  introduced  him  when  he  was  young  and  tender, 
and  his  mother's  relations  still  cherished  hopes  of  snatching  him 
as  a  brand  from  the  burning. 

The  front  rooms  of  the  club  were  tolerably  full  still.  He  passed 
on  to  the  back.  A  door-keeper  stationed  in  the  passage  stepped 
back  and  silently  opened  a  door.  It  closed  instantly  behind  him, 
and  Wharton  found  himself  in  a  room  with  some  twenty  other 
young  fellows  playing  baccarat,  piles  of  shining  money  on  the 
tables,  the  electric  lamps  hung  over  each,  lighting  every  detail  of 
the  scene  with  the  same  searching  disenchantino;  glare. 


CHAP.  Ill  MARCELLA  329 

"  I  say !  "  cried  a  young  dark-haired  fellow,  like  a  dishevelled 
Lord  Byron.     "Here  comes  the  Labour  leader  —  make  rooml" 

And  amid  laughter  and  chaffing  he  was  drawn  down  to  the 
bacciirat  table,  where  a  new  deal  was  just  beginning.  He  felt  in 
his  pockets  for  money ;  his  eyes,  intent  and  shining,  followed  every 
motion  of  the  dealer's  hand.  For  three  years  now,  ever  since  his 
return  from  his  travels,  the  gambler's  passion  had  been  stealing  on 
him.  Already  this  season  he  had  lost  and  won  —  on  the  whole 
lost  —  large  sums.'  And  the  fact  was  —  so  far  —  absolutely  un- 
known except  to  the  men  with  whom  he  played  in  this  room. 


CHAPTER  III 

"If  yer  goin'  downstairs,  Nuss,  you'd  better  take  that  there 
scuttle  with  yer,  for  the  coals  is  gittin'  low  an'  it  ull  save  yer  a 
journey ! " 

Marcella  looked  with  amusement  at  her  adviser  —  a  small 
bandy-legged  boy  in  shirt  and  knickerbockers,  with  black  Jewish 
eyes  in  a  strongly  featured  face.  He  stood  leaning  on  the  broom 
he  had  just  been  wielding,  his  sleeves  rolled  up  to  the  shoulder 
showing  his  tiny  arms;  his  expression  sharp  and  keen  as  a  hawk's. 

"  AVell,  Benny,  then  you  look  after  your  mother  while  I'm  gone, 
and  don't  let  any  one  in  but  the  doctor." 

And  Marcella  tm-ned  for  an  instant  towards  the  bed  whereon 
lay  a  sick  woman  too  feeble  apparently  to  speak  or  move. 

"  I  ain't  a  goin'  ter,"  said  the  boy,  shortly,  beginning  to  sweep 
again  with  energy,  "  an'  if  this  'ere  baby  cries,  give  it  the  bottle,  I 
s'pose  ?  " 

"No,  certainly  not,"  said  Marcella,  firmly;  "it  has  just  had  one. 
You  sweep  away,  Benny,  and  let  the  baby  alone." 

Benny  looked  a  trifle  wounded,  but  recovered  himself  immedi- 
ately, and  ran  a  general's  eye  over  Marcella  who  was  just  about  to 
leave  the  room. 

"Now  look  'ere,  Nuss,"  he  said  in  a  tone  of  pitying  remon- 
strance, "yer  never  a  goin'  down  to  that  'ere  coal  cellar  without  a 
light.  Yer'U  'ave  to  come  runnin'  up  all  them  stairs  again  —  sure 
as  I'm  alive  yer  will !  " 

And  darting  to  a  cupboard  he  pulled  out  a  grimy  candlestick 
with  an  end  of  dip  and  some  matches,  disposed  of  them  at  the 
bottom  of  the  coal-scuttle  that  Marcella  carried  over  her  left  arm, 
and  then,  still  masterfully  considering  her,  let  her  go. 

Marcella  groped  her  way  downstairs.  The  house  was  one  of  a 
type  familiar  all  over  the  poorer  parts  of  West  Central  f.ondon  — 
the  eighteenth-century  house  inhabited  by  law  or  fashion  in  the 


330  -  MAR  CELL  A  -  book  hi 

days  of  Dr.  Johnson,  now  parcelled  out  into  insanitary  tenements, 
miserably  provided  with  air,  water,  and  all  the  necessaries  of  life, 
but  still  showing  in  its  chimney-piece  or  its  decaying  staircase 
signs  of  the  graceful  domestic  art  which  had  ruled  at  the  building 
and  fitting  of  it. 

Marcella,  however,  had  no  eye  whatever  at  the  moment  for  the 
panelling  on  the  staircase,  or  the  delicate  ironwork  of  the  broken 
balustrade.  Rather  it  seemed  to  her,  as  she  looked  into  some  of 
the  half -open  doors  of  the  swarming  rooms  she  passed,  or  noticed 
with  disgust  the  dirt  and  dilapidation  of  the  stairs,  and  the  evil 
smells  of  the  basement,  that  the  house  added  one  more  to  the 
standing  shames  of  the  district  —  an  opinion  doubly  strong  in  her 
when  at  last  she  emerged  from  her  gropiugs  among  the  dens  of 
the  lower  regions,  and  began  to  toil  upstairs  again  with  her  filled 
kettle  and  coal-scuttle. 

The  load  was  heavy,  even  for  her  young  strength,  and  she  had 
just  passed  a  sleepless  night.  The  evening  before  she  had  been 
sent  for  in  haste  to  a  woman  in  desperate  illness.  She  came,  and 
found  a  young  Jewess,  with  a  ten  days'  old  child  beside  her,  strug- 
gling with  her  husband  and  two  women  friends  in  a  state  of  rag- 
ing delirium.  The  I'oom  was  full  to  suffocation  of  loud-tongued, 
large-eyed  Jewesses,  all  taking  turns  at  holding  the  patient,  and 
chattering  or  quarrelling  between  their  turns.  It  had  been  Mar- 
cella's  first  and  arduous  duty  to  get  the  place  cleared,  and  she  had 
done  it  without  ever  raising  her  voice  or  losing  her  temper  for  an 
instant.  The  noisy  pack  had  been  turned  out ;  the  most  compe- 
tent woman  among  them  chosen  to  guard  the  door  and  fetch  and 
carry  for  the  nurse;  while  Marcella  set  to  work  to  wash  her  patient 
and  remake  the  bed  as  best  she  could,  in  the  midst  of  the  poor 
thing's  wild  shrieks  and  wrestlings. 

It  was  a  task  to  test  both  musciilar  strength  and  moral  force  to 
their  utmost.  After  her  year's  training  Marcella  took  it  simply  in 
the  day's  work.  Some  hours  of  intense  effort  and  strain ;  then 
she  and  the  husband  looked  down  upon  the  patient,  a  woman  of 
about  six-and-twenty,  plunged  suddenly  in  narcotic  sleep,  her 
matted  black  hair,  which  Marcella  had  not  dared  to  touch,  lying 
in  wild  waves  on  the  clean  bed-clothes  and  night-gear  that  her 
nurse  had  extracted  from  this  neighbour  and  that  —  she  could 
hardly  have  told  how. 

''Ach,  mein  Gott,  mein  Gott!"  said  the  husband,  rising  and  shak- 
ing himself.  He  was  a  Jew  from  German  Poland,  and,  unlike 
most  of  his  race,  a  huge  man,  with  the  make  and  the  muscles  of 
a  prize-fighter.  Yet,  after  the  struggle  of  tlie  last  two  hours  he 
was  in  a  bath  of  perspiration. 

"You  will  have  to  send  her  to  the  infirmary  if  this  comes  on 
again,"  said  JNlarcella. 


CHAP.  HI  MARCELLA  331 

The  husband  stared  in  helpless  misery,  first  at  his  wife,  then  at 
the  nurse. 

"You  will  not  go  away,  mees,"  he  imploi'ed,  "j'ou  will  not  leaf 
me  alone  ?  " 

Wearied  as  she  was,  INIarcella  could  have  smiled  at  the  abject 
giant. 

"  No,  I  will  stay  with  her  till  the  morning-  and  till  the  doctor 
comes.     You  had -better  go  to  bed." 

It  was  close  on  three  o'clock.  The  man  demurred  a  little,  but  he 
was  in  truth  too  worn  out  to  resist.  He  went  into  the  back  room 
and  lay  down  with  the  children. 

Then  IMarcella  was  left  through  the  long  summer  dawn  alone 
with  her  patient.  Her  quick  ear  caught  every  sound  about  her  — 
the  heavy  breaths  of  the  father  and  children  in  the  back  room,  the 
twittering  of  the  sparrows,  the  first  cries  alSout  the  streets,  the  first 
movements  in  the  crowded  house.  Her  ndiid  all  the  time  was 
running  partly  on  contrivances  for  iiuUing  the  woman  through  — 
for  it  was  what  a  nurse  calls  "a  good  case,"  one  that  rouses  all  her 
nursing  skill  and  faculty  —  partly  on  the  extraordinary  misconduct 
of  the  doctor,  to  whose  criminal  neglect  and  mismanagement  of 
the  case  she  hotly  attributed  the  whole  of  the  woman's  illness; 
and  partly — -in  deep,  swift  sinkings  of  meditative  thought — on 
the  strangeness  of  the  fact  that  she  should  be  there  at  all,  sitting 
in  this  chair  in  this  miserable  room,  keeping  guard  over  this 
Jewish  mother  and  her  child  ! 

The  year  in  hospital  had  rushed  —  dreamless  sleep  by  night, 
exhausting  fatigue  of  mind  and  body  by  day.  A  hospital  nurse, 
if  her  work  seizes  her,  as  it  had  seized  Marcella,  never  thinks  of 
herself.  Now,  for  some  six  or  seven  weeks  she  had  been  living 
in  rooms,  as  a  district  nurse,  under  the  control  of  a  central  office 
and  superintendent.  Her  work  lay  in  the  homes  of  the  poor,  and 
was  of  the  most  varied  kind.  'J'he  life  was  freer,  more  elastic; 
allowed  room  at  last  to  self-consciousness. 

But  now  the  night  was  over.  The  husband  had  gone  off  to 
work  at  a  factory  near,  whence  he  could  be  summoned  at  any 
moment;  the  childi'en  had  been  disposed  of  to  Mrs.  Levi,  the 
helpful  neighbour;  she  herself  had  been  home  for  an  hour  to 
breakfast  and  dress,  had  sent  to  the  office  asking  that  her  other 
cases  might  be  attended  to,  and  was  at  present  in  sole  charge, 
with  Benny  to  help  her,  waiting  for  the  doctor. 

When  she  reached  the  sick-room  again  with  her  burdens,  she 
found  Benjamin  sitting  jieusive,  with  the  broom  across  his  knees. 

"Well,  Benny!"  she  said  as  she  entered,  "liovv  have  you  got 
on?" 


332  MARCELLA  book  hi 

"  Yer  can't  move  the  dii't  on  them  boards  with  sweepin',"  said 
Benny,  looking  at  them  with  disgust;  "an'  I  ain't  a  goin'  to  try 
it  no  more." 

"You're  about  right  there,  Benny,"  said  Marcella,  mournfully, 
as  she  inspected  them;  "well,  we'll  get  Mrs.  Levi  to  come  in  and 
scrub  —  as  soon  as  your  mother  can  bear  it." 

She  stepped  up  to  the  bed  and  looked  at  her  patient,  who  seemed 
to  be  passing  into  a  state  of  restless  prostration,  more  or  less  under 
the  influence  of  morphia.  Marcella  fed  her  with  strong  beef  tea 
made  by  herself  during  the  night,  and  debated  whether  she  should 
give  brandy.  No — either  the  doctor  would  come  directly,  or  she 
would  send  for  him.  She  had  not  seen  him  yet,  and  her  lip  curled 
at  the  thought  of  him.  He  had  ordered  a  nurse  the  night  before, 
but  had  not  stayed  to  meet  her,  and  Marcella  had  been  obliged  to 
make  out  his  instructions  from  the  husband  as  best  she  could. 

Benny  looked  up  at  her  with  a  wink  as  she  went  back  to  the 
fire. 

"  I  didn't  let  none  o'  tliem  in,"  he  said,  jerking  his  thumb  over 
his  shoulder.  "  They  come  a  whisperin'  at  the  door,  an'  a  rattlin' 
ov  the  handle  as  soon  as  ever  you  gone  downstairs.  But  I  tola 
'em  just  to  take  theirselves  off,  an'  as  'ow  you  didn't  want  'em. 
Sillies!" 

And  taking  a  crust  smeared  with  treacle  out  of  his  pocket, 
Benny  returned  with  a  severe  au-  to  the  sucking  of  it. 

Marcella  laughed. 

"Clever  Benny,"  she  said,  patting  his  head;  "but  why  aren't 
you  at  school,  sir  ?  " 

Benjamin  grinned. 

"  'Ow  d'yer  s'pose  my  ma's  goin'  to  git  along  without  me  to  do 
for  'er  and  the  babby?"  he  replied  slyly. 

"Well,  Benny,  you'll  have  the  Board  officer  down  on  you." 

At  this  the  urchin  laughed  out. 

"Why,  'e  wor  here  last  week!  Ee  can't  be  troublin'  'isself 
about  this  'ere  bloomin'  street  efery  day  in  the  week." 

There  was  a  sharp  knock  at  the  door. 

"  The  doctor,"  she  said,  as  her  face  dismissed  the  frolic  bright- 
ness which  had  stolen  upon  it  for  a  moment.   "  Run  away,  Benny." 

Benny  opened  the  door,  looked  the  doctor  coolly  up  and  down, 
and  then  withdrew  to  the  landing,  where  his  sisters  were  waiting 
to  play  with  him. 

The  doctor,  a  tall  man  of  thirty,  with  a  red,  blurred  face  and  a 
fair  moustache,  walked  in  hurriedly,  and  stared  at  the  nurse  stand- 
ing by  the  fire. 

"  You  come  from  the  St.  Martin's  Association  ?  " 

Marcella  stiffly  replied.     He  took  her  temperature-chart  from 


CHAP.  Ill  MARCELLA  333 

her  hand  and  asked  her  some  questions  about  the  night,  staring 
at  her  from  time  to  time  witli  eyes  that  displeased  her.  Presently 
she  came  to  an  account  of  the  condition  in  which  she  had  found 
her  patient.  The  edge  on  the  words,  for  all  their  professional 
quiet,  was  unmistakable.     She  saw  him  flush. 

He  moved  towards  the  bed,  and  she  went  with  him.  The 
woman  moaned  as  he  approached  her.  He  set  about  his  business 
with  hands  that  shook.  Marcella  decided  at  once  that  he  was  not 
sober,  and  watched  his  proceedings  with  increasing  disgust  and 
amazement.     Presently  she  could  bear  it  no  longer. 

"  I  think,"  she  said,  touching  his  arm,  "  that  you  had  better 
leave  it  to  me  —  and —  go  away  !  " 

He  drew  himself  up  with  a  start  which  sent  the  things  he  held 
flying,  and  faced  her  fiercely. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  he  said ;  "  don't  you  know  your  place  ?  " 

The  girl  was  very  white,  but  her  eyes  were  scornfuUy  steady. 

"  Yes  —  I  know  my  place  !  " 

Then  with  a  composure  as  fearless  as  it  was  scathing  she  said 
what  she  had  to  say.  She  knew  —  and  he  could  not  deny  —  that 
he  had  endangered  his  patient's  life.  She  pointed  out  that  he 
was  in  a  fair  way  to  endanger  it  again.  Every  word  she  said  lay 
absolutely  within  her  sphere  as  a  nurse.  His  cloudy  brain  cleared 
under  the  stress  of  it. 

Then  his  eyes^  flamed,  his  cheeks  became  purple,  and  Marcella 
thought  for  an  instant  he  would  have  struck  her.  Finally  he 
turned  down  his  shirt-cuffs  and  walked  away. 

"You  understand,"  he  said  thickly,  turning  upon  her,  with  liis 
hat  in  his  hand,  "that  I  shall  not  attend  this  case  again  till  your 
Association  can  send  me  a  nurse  that  will  do  as  she  is  told  with- 
out insolence  to  the  doctor.  I  shall  now  write  a  report  to  your 
superintendent." 

"  As  you  please,"  said  Marcella,  quietly.  And  she  went  to  the 
door  and  opened  it. 

He  passed  her  sneering  : 

"  A  precious  superior  lot  you  lady-nurses  think  yourselves,  I  dare 
say.  I'd  sooner  have  one  old  gamp  than  the  whole  boiling  of 
you!" 

Marcella  eyed  him  sternly,  her  nostrils  tightening.  "  Will  you 
go  ?  "  she  said. 

He  gave  ■  her  a  furious  glance,  and  plunged  down  the  stau's  out- 
side, breathing  threats. 

Marcella  put  her  hand  to  her  head  a  moment,  and  drew  a 
long  breath.  There  was  a  certain  piteousness  in  the  action, 
a  consciousness  of  youth  and  strain. 

Then  she  saw  that  the  landing  and  the  stau-s  above  were  begin- 


334  MARCELLA  book  hi 

ning  to  fill  with  dark-haired  .Jewesses,  eagei'ly  peering  and  talking. 
In  another  minute  or  two  she  would  be  besieged  by  them.  She 
called  sharply,  "  Benny!  " 

Instantly  Benny  appeared  from  the  landing  above,  elbowing  the 
Jewesses  to  right  and  left. 

"  What  is  it  you  want,  Nuss?  No,  she  don't  want  none  o'  you 
—  there ! " 

And  Benjamin  darted  into  the  room,  and  would  have  slammed 
the  door  in  all  their  faces,  but  that  Marcella  said  to  him  — 

"  Let  in  jNIrs.  Levi,  please." 

The  kind  neighbour,  who  had  been  taking  care  of  the  children, 
was  admitted,  and  then  the  key  was  turned.  Marcella  scribbled  a 
line  on  a  half-sheet  of  paper,  and,  with  careful  directions,  despatched 
Benny  with  it. 

"  I  have  sent  for  a  new  doctor,"  she  explained,  still  frowning 
and  white,  to  Mrs.  Levi.     "  That  one  was  not  fit." 

The  woman's  olive-skinned  face  lightened  all  over.  "  Thanks  to 
the  Lord!  "  she  said,  throwing  up  her  hands.  "  But  how  in  the 
world  did  you  do  't,  miss  ?  There  isn't  a  single  soul  in  this  house 
that  doesn't  go  all  of  a  tremble  at  the  sight  of  'im.  Yet  all  the 
women  has  'im  when  they're  iU —  bound  to.  They  thinks  he  must 
be  clever,  'cos  he's  such  a  brute.  I  do  believe  sometimes  it's  that. 
He  is  a  brute !  " 

Marcella  was  bending  over  her  patient,  trying  so  far  as  she  could 
to  set  her  straight  and  comfortable  again.  But  the  woman  had 
begun  to  mutter  once  more  words  in  a  strange  dialect  that  Mar- 
cella did  not  understand,  and  could  no  longer  be  kept  still.  The 
temperature  was  rising  again,  and  another  fit  of  delirium  was  im- 
minent. Marcella  could  only  hope  that  she  and  Mrs.  Levi  between 
them  would  be  able  to  hold  her  till  the  doctor  came.  When  she 
had  done  all  that  was  in  her  power,  she  sat  beside  the  poor  tossing 
creature,  controlling  and  calming  her  as  best  she  could,  while  I\Irs. 
Levi  poured  into  her  shrinking  ear  the  story  of  the  woman's  ill- 
ness and  of  Dr.  Blank's  conduct  of  it.  MarceUa's  feeling,  as  she 
listened,  was  made  up  of  that  old  agony  of  rage  and  pity !  The 
sufferings  of  the  poor,  because  they  were  poor  —  these  things  often, 
still,  darkened  earth  and  heaven  for  her.  That  wretch  would  have 
been  quite  capable,  no  doubt,  of  conducting  himself  decently  and 
even  competently,  if  he  had  been  called  to  some  supposed  lady  in 
one  of  the  well-to-do  squares  which  made  the  centre  of  this  poor 
and  crowded  district. 

"  Hullo,  nurse !  "  said  a  cheery  voice  ;  "  you  seem  to  have  got  a 
bad  case." 

The  sound  was  as  music  in  Marcella's  ears.  The  woman  she 
held  was  fast  becoming  unmanageable  —  had  just  shrieked,  first 


CHAP.  Ill  MARCELLA  335 

for  "  poison,"  then  for  a  "  knife,"  to  kill  herself  with,  and  could 
hardly  be  prevented  by  the  combined  strength  of  her  nurse  and 
Mrs.  Levi,  now  from  tlirowing  herself  madly  out  of  bed,  and  now 
from  tearing  out  her  black  haii*  in  handfuls.  Th«  doctor  —  a 
young  Scotchman  with  spectacles,  and  stubbly  red  beard  —  came 
quickly  up  to  the  bed,  asked  Marcella  a  few  short  questions, 
shrugged  his  shoulders  over  her  dry  report  of  Dr.  Blank's  pro- 
ceedings, then  took  out  a  black  case  from  his  pocket,  and  put  his 
morphia  syringe  together. 

For  a  long  time  no  result  whatever  could  be  obtained  by  any 
treatment.  The  husband  was  sent  for,  and  came  trembling,  im- 
ploring doctor  and  nurse,  in  the  intervals  of  his  wife's  paroxysms, 
not  to  leave  him  alone. 

Marcella,  absorbed  in  the  tragic  horror  of  the  case,  took  no  note 
of  the  passage  of  time.  Everything  that  the  doctor  suggested  she 
carried  out  with  a  deftness,  a  tenderness,  a  power  of  mind,  which 
keenly  affected  his  professional  sense.  Once,  the  poor  mother, 
left  unguarded  for  an  instant,  struck  out  with  a  wild  right  hand. 
The  blow  caught  Marcella  on  the  cheek,  and  she  drew  back  with  a 
slight  involuntary  cry. 

"You  are  hurt,"  said  Dr.  Angus,  running  up  to  her. 

"  No,  no,"  she  said,  smiling  through  the  tears  that  the  shock  had 
called  into  her  ej^es,  and  putting  him  rather  impatiently  aside ;  "it 
is  nothing.     You  said  you  wanted  some  fresh  ice." 

And  she  went  into  the  back  room  to  get  it. 

The  doctor  stood  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  studying  the 
patient. 

"  You  will  have  to  send  her  to  the  infirmary,"  he  said  to  the 
husband;  "there  is  nothing  else  for  it." 

Marcella  came  back  with  the  ice,  and  was  able  to  apply  it  to  the 
head.  The  patient  was  quieter  —  was,  in  fact,  now  groaning  her- 
self into  a  fresh  period  of  exhaustion. 

The  doctor's  sharp  eyes  took  note  of  the  two  figures,  the  huddled 
creature  on  the  pillows  and  the  stately  head  bending  over  her, 
with  the  delicately  hollowed  cheek,  whereon  the  marks  of  those 
mad  fingers  stood  out  red  and  angry.  He  had  already  had  experi- 
ence of  this  girl  in  one  or  two  other  cases. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  taking  up  his  hat,  "  it  is  no  good  shilly-shally- 
ing.   I  will  go  and  find  Dr.  Swift."    Dr.  Swift  was  the  parish  doctor. 

When  he  had  gone,  the  big  husband  broke  down  and  cried,  with 
his  head  against  the  iron  of  the  bed  close  to  his  wife.  He  put  his 
great  hand  on  hers,  and  talked  to  her  brokenly  in  their  own  patois. 
They  had  been  eight  years  married,  and  she  had  never  had  a  day's 
serious  illness  till  now.  Marcella's  eyes  filled  with  tears  as  she 
moved  about  the  room,  doing  various  little  tasks. 


336  MARCELLA  book  hi 

At  last  she  went  up  to  hiin. 

"  Won't  you  go  and  have  some  dinner  ?  "  she  said  to  him  kindly. 
"  There's  Benjamin  calling  you,"  and  she  pointed  to  the  door  of 
the  back  roojn,  where  stood  Benny,  his  face  puckered  with  weep- 
ing, forlornly  holding  out  a  plate  of  fried  fish,  in  the  hope  of 
attracting  his  father's  attention. 

The  man,  who  in  spite  of  his  size  and  strength  was  in  truth 
childishly  soft  and  ductile,  went  as  he  was  bid,  and  Marcella  and 
Mrs.  Levi  set  about  doing  what  they  could  to  prepare  the  wife  for 
her  removal. 

Presently  parish  doctor  and  sanitary  inspector  appeared,  strange 
and  peremptory  invaders  who  did  but  add  to  the  terror  and  misery 
of  the  husband.  Then  at  last  came  the  ambulance,  and  Dr.  Angus 
with  it.  The  patient,  now  once  more  plunged  in  narcotic  stupor, 
was  carried  downstairs  by  two  male  nurses.  Dr.  Angus  presiding. 
Marcella  stood  in  the  doorway  and  watched  the  scene,  —  the  grad- 
ual disappearance  of  the  helpless  form  on  the  stretcher,  with  its 
fevered  face  under  the  dark  mat  of  hair ;  the  figures  of  the  strain- 
ing men  heavily  descending  step  by  step,  their  heads  and  shoulders 
thrown  out  against  the  dirty  drabs  and  browns  of  the  staircase  ; 
the  crowd  of  Jewesses  on  the  stairs  and  landing,  craning  their 
necks,  gesticulating  and  talking,  so  that  Dr.  Angus  could  hardly 
make  his  directions  heard,  angrily  as  he  bade  them  stand  back; 
and  on  the  top  stair,  the  big  husband,  following  the  form  of  his 
departing  and  unconscious  wife  with  his  eyes,  his  face  convulsed 
with  weeping,  the  whimpering  children  clinging  about  his  knees. 

How  hot  it  was  !  —  how  stifling  the  staircase  smelt,  and  how  the 
sun  beat  down  from  that  upper  window  on  the  towzled  unkempt 
women  with  their  large-eyed  children ! 


CHAPTER  IV 

Marcella  on  her  way  home  turned  into  a  little  street  leading 
to  a  great  block  of  model  dwellings,  which  rose  on  the  right-hand 
side  and  made  everything  else,  the  mews  entrance  opposite,  the 
lines  of  squalid  shops  on  either  side,  look  particularly  small  and 
dirty.  The  sun  was  beating  fiercely  down,  and  she  was  sick  and 
tired. 

As  she  entered  the  iron  gate  of  the  dwellings,  and  saw  before 
her  the  large  asphalted  court  round  which  they  ran  —  blazing  heat 
on  one  side  of  it,  and  on  the  other  some  children  playing  cricket 
against  the  wall  with  chalk  marks  for  wickets  —  she  was  seized 
with  depression.  The  tall  yet  mean  buildings,  the  smell  of  dust 
and  heat,  the  general  impression  of  packed  and  crowded  humanity 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  337 

—  these  things,  instead  of  offering  her  rest,  only  continued  and 
accented  the  sense  of  strain,  called  for  more  endurance,  more 
making  the  best  of  it. 

But  she  found  a  tired  smile  for  some  of  the  children  who  ran  up 
to  her,  and  then  she  climbed  the  .stairs  of  the  E.  block,  and  opened 
the  door  of  her  own  tenement,  number  10.  In  number  9  lived 
Minta  Hurd  and  her  children,  who  had  joined  IMarcella  in  London 
some  two  months  before.  In  sets  7  and  H,  on  either  side  of  Marcella 
and  the  Hurds,  lived  two  widows,  each  with  a  family,  who  were 
mostly  out  charing  during  the  day. 

Marcella's  Association  allowed  its  District  Nurses  to  live  out- 
side the  "  home  "  of  the  district  on  certain  conditions,  which  had 
been  fulfilled  in  Marcella's  case  by  her  settlement  next  door  to  her 
old  friends  in  these  buildings  which  were  inhabited  by  a  very 
respectable  though  poor  class.  Meanwhile  the  trustees  of  the 
buildings  had  allowed  her  to  make  a  temporary  communication 
between  her  room  and  the  Hurds,  so  that  she  could  either  live  her 
own  solitary  and  independent  life,  or  call  for  their  companionship, 
as  she  pleased. 

As  she  shut  her  door  behind  her  she  found  herself  in  a  little 
passage  or  entry.  To  the  left  was  her  bedroom.  Straight  in 
front  of  her  was  the  living  room  with  a  small  close  range  in  it, 
and  behind  it  a  little  back  kitchen. 

The  living  room  was  cheerful  and  even  pretty.  Her  art- 
student's  training  showed  itself.  The  cheap  blue  and  white 
paper,  the  couple  of  oak  flap  tables  from  a  broker's  shop  in 
Marchmout  Street,  the  two  or  three  cane  chairs  with  their  bright 
chintz  cushions,  the  Indian  rug  or  two  on  the  varnished  boards, 
the  photographs  and  etchings  on  the  walls,  the  books  on  the 
tables  —  there  was  not  one  of  these  things  that  was  not  in  its 
degree  a  pleasure  to  her  young  senses,  that  did  not  help  her  to 
live  her  life.  This  afternoon  as  she  opened  the  door  and  looked 
in,  the  pretty  colours  and  forms  in  the  tiny  room  were  as  water  to 
the  thirsty.  Her  mother  had  sent  her  some  flowers  the  day  before. 
There  they  were  on  the  tables,  great  bunches  of  honeysuckles,  of 
blue-bells,  and  Banksia  roses.  And  over  the  mantelpiece  was  a 
photogTaph  of  the  j^lace  where  such  flowers  as  Mellor  possessed 
mostly  grew — the  unkempt  lawn,  the  old  fountain  and  grey  walls 
of  the  Cedar  Garden. 

The  green  blind  over  the  one  window  which  looked  into  the 
court,  had  been  drawn  down  against  the  glare  of  the  sun,  as 
though  by  a  careful  hand.  Beside  a  light  wooden  rocking  chair, 
which  was  Marcella's  favourite  seat,  a  tray  of  tea  things  had  been 
put  out.  Marcella  drew  a  long  breath  of  comfort  as  she  put  down 
her  bag. 


338  MARCELLA  book  in 

"  Xow,  can  I  wait  for  my  tea  till  I  have  M^ashed  and  dressed?  " 

She  argued  Avith  herself  an  instant  as  though  she  had  been 
a  greedy  child,  then,  going  swiftly  into  the  back  kitchen,  she 
opened  the  door  between  her  rooms  and  the  Hurds. 

"  Minta  1 " 

A  voice  responded. 

"Minta,  make  me  some  tea  and  boil  an  G%g\  there's  a  good 
soul!     I  will  be  back  directly." 

And  in  ten  minutes  or  so  she  came  back  again  into  the  sitting- 
room,  daintily  fresh  and  clean  but  very  pale.  She  had  taken  off 
her  nui'se's  dress  and  apron,  and  put  on  something  loose  and 
white  that  hung  about  her  in  cool  folds. 

But  Minta  Kurd,  who  had  just  brought  in  the  tea,  looked  at 
her  disapprovingly. 

"  Whatever  are  you  so  late  for  ? "  she  asked  a  little  peevishly. 
*'  You'll  get  ill  if  you  go  missing  your  dinner." 

"  I  couldn't  help  it,  Minta,  it  was  such  a  bad  case." 

Mi's.  Hurd  poured  out  the  tea  in  silence,  unappeased.  Her  mind 
was  constantly  full  of  protest  against  this  nursing.  Why  should 
Miss  Boyce  do  such  "funny  things  "  —  why  should  she  live  as  she 
did,  at  all? 

Their  relation  to  each  other  was  a  curious  one.  Marcella,  know- 
ing that  the  life  of  Hurd's  widow  at  Mellor  was  gall  and  bitterness, 
had  sent  for  her  at  the  moment  that  she  herself  was  leaving  the 
hospital,  offering  her  a  weekly  sum  in  return  for  a  little  cooking  and 
house  service.  Minta  already  possessed  a  weekly  pension,  coming 
from  a  giver  unknown  to  her.  It  was  regularly  handed  to  her  by 
Mr.  Harden,  and  she  could  only  imagine  that  one  of  the  "  gentle- 
men "  who  had  belonged  to  the  Hurd  Reprieve  Committee,  and  had 
worked  so  hard  for  Jim,  was  responsible  for  it  out  of  pity  for  her 
and  her  children.  The  payment  offered  her  by  Miss  Boyce  would 
defray  the  expense  of  London  house-rent,  the  children's  schooling, 
and  leave  a  trifle  over.  Moreover  she  was  pining  to  get  away  from 
Mellor.  Her  first  instinct  after  her  husband's  execution  had  been 
to  hide  herself  from  all  the  world.  But  for  a  long  time  her  pre- 
carious state  of  health,  and  her  dependence  first  on  Marcella,  then 
on  Mary  Harden,  made  it  impossible  for  her  to  leave  the  village. 
It  was  not  till  Marcella's  proposal  came  that  her  way  was  clear. 
She  sold  her  bits  of  things  at  once,  took  her  children  and  went  up 
to  Brown's  Buildings. 

Marcella  met  her  with  the  tenderness,  the  tragic  tremor  of  feeling 
from  which  the  peasant's  wife  shrank  anew,  bewildered,  as  she  had 
often  shrunk  from  it  in  the  past.  Jim's  fate  had  made  her  an  old 
woman  at  thirty-two.  She  was  now  a  little  shrivelled  consumptive 
creature  with  almost  white  hair,  and  a  face  from  which  youth  had 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  339 

gone,  unless  perhaps  there  were  some  traces  of  it  in  the  still  charm- 
ing eyes,  and  small  open  mouth.  But  these  changes  had  come  upon 
her  she  knew  not  why,  as  the  result  of  blows  she  felt  but  had  never 
reasoned  about.  Marcella's  fixed  mode  of  conceiving  her  and  her 
story  caused  her  from  the  beginning  of  their  fresh  acquaintance  a 
dumb  irritation  and  trouble  she  could  never  have  explained.  It 
was  so  tragic,  reflective,  exacting.  It  seemed  to  ask  of  her  feelings 
that  she  could  not  have,  to  expect  from  her  expression  that  was 
impossible.  And  it  stood  also  between  her  and  the  friends  and 
distractions  that  she  w^ould  like  to  have.  Why  shouldn't  that 
queer  man,  Mr.  Strozzi,  who  lived  down  below,  and  whose  name  she 
could  not  pronounce,  come  and  sit  sometimes  of  an  evening,  and 
amuse  her  and  the  children  ?  He  was  a  "  Professor  of  Elocution," 
and  said  and  sung  comic  pieces.  He  was  very  civil  and  obliging 
too ;  she  liked  him.  Yet  ^liss  Boyce  was  evidently  astonished  that 
she  could  make  friends  with  him,  and  JMiuta  perfectly  understood 
the  lift  of  her  dark  eyebrows  whenever  she  came  in  and  found  him 
sitting  there. 

Meanwhile  Marcella  had  expected  her  with  emotion,  and  had 
meant  through  this  experiment  to  bring  herself  truly  near  to  the 
poor.  Minta  must  not  call  her  Miss  Boyce,  but  by  her  name; 
which,  however,  Minta,  reddening,  had  declared  she  could  never 
do.  Her  relation  to  Marcella  was  not  to  be  that  of  servant  in 
any  sense,  but  of  friend  and  sister;  and  on  her  and  her  children 
Marcella  had  spent  from  the  beginning  a  number  of  new  womanish 
wiles  which,  strangely  enough,  this  hard,  strenuous  life  had  been 
developing  in  her.  She  would  come  and  help  put  the  children  to 
bed ;  she  would  romp  with  them  in  their  nightgowns ;  she  would 
bend  her  imperious  head  over  the  anxious  endeavour  to  hem  a 
pink  cotton  pinafore  for  Daisy,  or  dress  a  doll  for  the  baby.  But 
the  relation  jarred  and  limped  perpetually,  and  Marcella  wistfully 
thought  it  her  fault. 

Just  now,  however,  as  she  sat  gently  swaying  backwards  and 
forwards  in  the  rocking  chair,  enjoying  her  tea,  her  mood  was  one 
of  nothing  but  content. 

"  Oh,  Minta,  give  me  another  cup.  I  want  to  have  a  sleep  so 
badly,  and  then  I  am,  going  to  see  Miss  Hallin,  and  stay  to  supper 
with  them." 

"  Well,  you  mustn't  go  out  in  them  nursin'  things  again,"  said 
Minta,  quickly;  "I've  put  you  in  some  lace  in  your  black  dress,  an' 
it  looks  beautiful." 

"  Oh,  thank  you,  Minta ;  but  that  black  dress  always  seems  to 
me  too  smart  to  walk  about  these  streets  in." 

"  It's  just  nice,"  said  ]\Iinta,  with  decision.  "  It's  just  what 
everybody  that   knows   you  —  what    your   mamma  —  would   like 


340  MARCELLA  book  hi 

to  see  you  in.  I  can't  abide  them  nursin'  clothes  —  nasty 
things !  " 

"  I  declai'e !  "  cried  ]\Iarcella,  laughing,  but  outraged ;  "  I  never 
like  myself  so  well  in  anything." 

Miuta  was  silent,  but  her  small  mouth  took  an  obstinate  look. 
What  she  really  felt  was  that  it  was  absurd  for  ladies  to  wear 
caps  and  aprons  and  plain  black  bonnets,  when  there  was  no  need 
for  them  to  do  anything  of  the  kind. 

"  Whatever  have  you  been  doing  to  your  cheek?  "  she  exclaimed, 
suddenly,  as  Marcella  handed  her  the  empty  cup  to  take  away. 

Marcella  explained  shortly,  and  Minta  looked  more  discon- 
tented than  ever.  "  A  lot  of  low  people  as  ought  to  look  after 
themselves,"  that  was  how  in  her  inmost  mind  she  generally 
defined  Marcella's  jiatients.  She  had  been  often  kind  and  soft 
to  her  neighbours  at  Mellor,  but  these  dirty,  crowded  Londoners 
were  another  matter. 

"Where  is  Daisy?"  asked  Marcella  as  Minta  was  going  away 
with  the  tea;  "she  must  have  come  back  from  school." 

"  Here  I  am,"  said  Daisy,  with  a  grin,  peeping  in  through  the 
door  of  the  back  kitchen.     "  Mother,  baby's  woke  up." 

"Come  here,  you  monkey,"  said  Marcella;  "come  and  go  to 
sleep  with  me.     Have  you  had  your  tea?" 

"  Yes,  lots,"  said  Daisy,  climbing  up  into  Marcella's  lap.  "  Are 
you  going  to  be  asleep  a  long  time?  " 

"  Xo  —  only  a  nap.  Oh!  Daisy,  I'm  so  tired.  Come  and  cud- 
dlie  a  bit !  If  you  don't  go  to  sleep  you  know  you  can  slip  away 
—  I  shan't  wake." 

The  child,  a  slight,  red-haired  thing,  with  something  of  the 
ethereal  charm  that  her  dead  brotlier  had  possessed,  settled  her- 
self on  Marcella's  knees,  slipped  her  left  thumb  into  her  mouth, 
and  flung  her  other  arm  round  Marcella's  neck.  They  had  often 
gone  to  sleep  so.  Mrs.  Hurd  came  back,  drew  down  the  blind 
further,  threw  a  light  shawl  over  them  both,  and  left  them. 

An  hour  and  a  half  later  Minta  came  in  again  as  she  had  been 
told.  Daisy  had  slipped  away,  but  ]\Iarcella  was  still  lying  in  the 
perfect  gentleness  and  relaxation  of  sleep. 

"You  said  I  was  to  come  and  wake  you,"  said  Minta,  drawing 
up  the  blind ;  "  but  I  don't  believe  you're  a  bit  fit  to  be  going 
about.     Here's  some  hot  water,  and  there's  a  letter  just  come." 

Marcella  woke  with  a  start,  Minta  put  the  letter  on  her  knee, 
and  dream  and  reality  flowed  together  as  she  saw  her  own  name 
in  Wharton's  handwriting. 

She  read  the  letter,  then  sat  flushed  and  thinking  for  a  while 
with  her  hands  on  her  knees. 

A  little  while  later  she  opened  the  Hurds'  front  door. 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  341 

"  Minta,  I  am  going  now.  I  shall  be  back  early  after  supper, 
for  I  haven't  written  iny  report." 

"  There  —  now  you  look  sonietliing  like  !  "  said  Minta,  scanning 
her  approvingly  —  the  wide  hat  and  pretty  black  dress.  "Shall 
Daisy  run  out  with  that  telegram  ?  " 

"No,  thanks.     I  shall  pass  the  post.     Good-bye." 

And  slie  stooped  and  kissed  the  little  withered  woman.  She 
wished,  ardently  wished,  that  Minta  would  be  more  truly  friends 
with  her! 

After  a  brisk  walk  through  the  June  evening  she  stopi^ed  —  still 
within  the  same  district  —  at  the  door  of  a  house  in  a  long,  old- 
fashioned  street,  wherein  the  builder  was  busy  on  either  hand, 
since  most  of  the  long  leases  had  just  fallen  in.  But  the  house 
she  entered  was  still  untouched.  She  climbed  a  last-century  stair- 
case, adorned  with  panels  of  stucco  work  —  slender  Italianate 
reliefs  of  wreaths,  ribbons,  and  medallions  on  a  pale  green  ground. 
The  decoration  was  clean  and  cared  for,  the  house  in  good  order. 
Eighty  years  ago  it  was  the  home  of  a  famous  judge,  who  enter- 
tained in  its  rooms  the  legal  and  literary  celebrities  of  his  day. 
Now  it  was  let  out  to  professional  people  in  lodgings  or  unfur- 
nished rooms.  Edward  Hallin  and  his  sister  occupied  the  top 
floor. 

Miss  Hallin,  a  pleasant-looking,  plain  woman  of  about  thirty- 
five,  came  at  once  in  answer  to  Marcella's  knock,  and  greeted  her 
affectionately.  Edward  Hallin  sprang  up  from  a  table  at  the 
further  end  of  the  room. 

"  You  are  so  late !  Alice  and  I  had  made  up  our  minds  you  had 
forgotten  us ! " 

"  I  didn't  get  home  till  four,  and  then  I  had  to  have  a  sleep," 
she  explained,  half  shyly. 

"  What !  you  haven't  been  night-nursing?" 

"Yes,  for  once." 

"  Alice,  tell  them  to  bring  up  supper,  and  let's  look  after  her." 

He  wheeled  round  a  comfortable  chair  to  the  open  window  — 
the  charming  cu-cular  bow  of  last-century  design,  which  filled  up 
the  end  of  the  room  and  gave  it  character.  The  window  looked 
out  on  a  quiet  line  of  back  gardens,  such  as  may  still  be  seen  in 
Bloomsbury,  with  fine  plane  trees  here  and  there  just  coming  into 
full  leaf ;  and  beyond  them  the  backs  of  another  line  of  houses 
in  a  distant  square,  with  pleasant  irregularities  of  old  brickwork 
and  tiled  roof.  The  mottled  trunks  of  the  planes,  their  blackened 
twigs  and  branches,  their  thin,  beautiful  leaves,  the  forms  of  the 
houses  beyond,  rose  in  a  charming  medley  of  line  against  the  blue 
and  peaceful  sky.  No  near  sound  was  to  be  heard,  only  the  dis- 
tant murmur  that  no  Londoner  escapes;  and  some  of  the  British 


342  MARCELLA  book  hi 

Museum  pigeons  were   sunning   tliemselves   on  the    garden-wall 
below. 

Within,  the  Hallins'  room  was  spacious  and  barely  furnished. 
The  walls,  indeed,  were  crowded  with  books,  and  broken,  where 
the  books  ceased,  by  photographs  of  Italy  and  Greece ;  but  of  fur- 
niture proper  there  seemed  to  be  little  beside  Hallin's  large  writ- 
ing-table facing  tlie  window,  and  a  few  chairs,  placed  on  the  blue 
drugget  which  brother  and  sister  had  chosen  with  a  certain  anxiety, 
di-eading  secretly  lest  it  should  be  a  piece  of  self-indulgence  to  buy 
what  pleased  them  both  so  much.  On  one  side  of  the  fireplace  was 
Miss  Hallin's  particular  corner ;  her  chair,  the  table  that  held  her 
few  special  books,  her  work-basket,  Avith  its  knitting,  her  accounts. 
There,  in  the  intervals  of  many  activities,  she  sat  and  worked  or  read, 
always  cheerful  and  busy,  and  always  watching  over  her  brother. 

"  I  wish,"  said  Hallin,  with  some  discontent,  when  Marcella  had 
settled  herself,  "  that  we  were  going  to  be  alone  to-night ;  that 
would  have  rested  you  more." 

"  Why,  who  is  coming?  "  said  Marcella,  a  little  flatly.  She  had 
certainly  hoped  to  find  them  alone. 

"Your  old  friend,  Frank  Leven,  is  coming  to  supper.  When  he 
heard  you  were  to  be  here  he  vowed  that  nothing  could  or  should 
keep  him  away.  Then,  after  supper,  one  or  two  people  asked  if 
they  might  come  in.     There  are  some  anxious  things  going  on." 

He  leant  his  head  on  his  hand  for  a  moment  with  a  sigh,  then 
forcibly  wrenched  himself  from  what  were  evidently  recurrent 
thoughts. 

"  Do  tell  me  some  more  of  what  you  are  doing !  "  he  said,  bend- 
ing forward  to  her.  "You  don't  know  how  much  I  have  thought 
of  what  you  have  told  me  already." 

"I'm  doing  just  the  same,"  she  said,  laughing.  "Don't  take  so 
much  interest  in  it.  It's  the  fashion  just  now  to  admire  nurses; 
but  it's  ridiculous.  We  do  our  work  like  other  people  —  some- 
times badly,  sometimes  well.  And  some  of  us  wouldn't  do  it  if 
we  could  help  it." 

She  threw  out  the  last  words  with  a  certain  vehemence,  as 
though  eager  to  get  away  from  any  sentimentalism  about  herself. 
Hallin  studied  her  kindly. 

"  Is  this  miscellaneous  work  a  relief  to  you  after  hospital?  "  he 
asked. 

"  For  the  present.  It  is  more  exciting,  and  one  sees  more  char- 
acter. But  there  are  drawbacks.  In  hospital  everything  was 
settled  for  you  —  every  hour  was  full,  and  there  were  always 
orders  to  follow.  And  the  '  off '  times  were  no  trouble  —  I  never 
did  anything  else  but  walk  up  and  down  the  Embankment  if  it 
was  fine,  or  go  to  the  Xational  Gallery  if  it  was  wet." 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  343 

"  And  it  was  the  monotony  j'ou  liked?  " 

She  made  a  sign  of  assent. 

*'  Strange  !  "  said  Hallin  ;  "  who  could  ever  have  foreseen  it?  " 

She  flushed. 

"You  might  have  foreseen  it,  I  think,"  she  said,  not  without  a 
little  impatience.  "  But  I  didn't  like  it  all  at  once.  I  hated  a 
great  deal  of  it.  If  they  had  let  me  alone  all  the  time  to  scrub 
and  polish  and  wash  —  the  things  they  set  me  to  at  first  —  I 
thought  I  should  have  been  quite  happy.  To  see  my  table  full  of 
glasses  without  a  spot,  and  my  brass-taps  shining,  made  me  as 
proud  as  a  peacock !  But  then  of  course  I  had  to  learn  the  real 
work,  and  that  was  very  odd  at  first." 

"How?    Morally?"" 

She  nodded,  laiighing  at  her  own  remembrances.  "  Yes  —  it 
seemed  to  me  all  topsy-turvy.  I  thought  the  Sister  at  the  head 
of  the  ward  rather  a  stupid  person.  If  I  had  seen  her  at  Mellor 
I  shoiddn't  have  spoken  two  words  to  her.  And  here  she  was 
ordering  me  about — rating  me  as  I  had  never  rated  a  house-maid 
—  laughing  at  me  for  not  knowing  this  or  that,  and  generally 
making  me  feel  that  a  raw  probationer  was  one  of  the  tilings  of 
least  account  in  the  whole  universe.  I  knew  perfectly  well  that 
she  had  said  to  herself,  '  Now  then  I  must  take  that  proud  girl 
down  a  peg,  or  she  will  be  no  use  to  anybody ; '  and  I  had  some- 
how to  put  up  with  it." 

"Drastic!"  said  Hallin,  laughing;  "did  you  comfort  yourself 
by  reflecting  that  it  was  everybody's  fate?" 

Her  lip  twitched  with  amusement. 

"  Not  for  a  long  time.  I  used  to  have  the  most  absurd  ideas !  — 
sometimes  looking  back  I  can  hardly  believe  it  —  perhaps  it  was 
partly  a  queer  state  of  nerves.  When  I  was  at  school  and  got 
in  a  passion  I  used  to  try  and  overawe  the  girls  by  shaking  my 
Speaker  great-uncle  in  their  faces.  And  so  in  hospital ;  it  would 
flash  across  me  sometimes  in  a  plaintive  sort  of  way  that  they 
couldn't  know  that  I  was  Miss  Boyce  of  Mellor,  and  had  been 
mothering  and  ruling  the  whole  of  my  father's  village  —  or  they 
wouldn't  treat  me  so.  Mercifully  I  held  my  tongue.  But  one 
d&j  it  came  to  a  crisis.  I  had  had  to  get  things  ready  for  an 
operation,  and  had  done  very  well.  Dr.  Marshall  had  paid  me 
even  a  little  compliment  all  to  myself.  But  then  afterwards  the 
patient  was  some  time  in  coming  to,  and  there  had  to  be  hot-water 
bottles.  I  had  them  ready  of  course ;  but  they  were  too  hot,  and 
in  my  zeal  and  nervousness  I  burnt  the  patient's  elbow  in  two 
places.  Oh !  the  fuss,  and  the  scolding,  and  the  humiliation  !• 
When  I  left  the  ward  that  evening  I  thought  I  would  go  home 
next  day." 


344  MARCELLA  book  hi 

"  But  you  didn't  ?  " 

"  If  I  could  have  sat  down  and  thought  it  out,  I  should  probably 
have  gone.  But  I  couldn't  think  it  out  —  I  was  too  dead  tired. 
That  is  the  chief  feature  of  your  first  months  in  hospital  —  the 
utter  helpless  fatigue  at  night.  You  go  to  bed  aching  and  you 
wake  up  aching.  If  you  are  healthy  as  I  was,  it  doesn't  hurt  you ; 
but,  when  your  time  comes  to  sleep,  sleep  you  7nust.  Even  that 
miserable  night  my  head  was  no  sooner  on  the  pillow  than  I  was 
asleep ;  and  next  morning  there  was  all  the  routine  as  usual,  and 
the  dread  of  being  a  minute  late  on  duty.  Then  when  I  got  into 
the  ward  the  Sister  looked  at  me  rather  queerly  and  went  out  of 
her  way  to  be  kind  to  me.  Oh  !  I  was  so  grateful  to  her !  I  could 
have  brushed  her  boots  or  done  any  other  menial  service  for  her 
with  delight.  And  —  then  —  somehow  I  pulled  through.  The 
enormous  interest  of  the  work  seized  me  —  I  grew  ambitious  — 
they  pushed  me  on  rapidly  —  everybody  seemed  suddenly  to 
become  my  friend  instead  of  my  enemy  —  and  I  ended  by  think- 
ing the  hospital  the  most  fascinating  and  engrossing  place  in  the 
whole  world." 

"  A  curious  experience,"  said  Hallin.  "  I  suppose  you  had  never 
obeyed  any  one  in  your  life  before?" 

"  Not  since  I  was  at  school  —  and  then  —  not  much!" 

Hallin  glanced  at  her  as  she  lay  back  in  her  chair.  How  richly 
human  the  face  had  grown !  It  was  as  forcible  as  ever  in  expres- 
sion and  colour,  but  that  look  which  had  often  repelled  him  in  his 
first  acquaintance  with  her,  as  of  a  hard  speculative  eagerness 
moi'e  like  the  ardent  boy  than  the  woman,  had  very  much  disaj)- 
peared.  It  seemed  to  him  absorbed  in  something  new — something 
sad  and  yet  benignant,  informed  with  all  the  pathos  and  the  pain 
of  growth. 

"  How  long  have  you  been  at  work  to-day?"  he  asked  her. 

"  I  went  at  eleven  last  night.  I  came  away  at  four  this  after- 
noon." 

Hallin  exclaimed,  "  You  had  food  ?  " 

" Do  you  think  I  should  let  myself  starve  with  my  work  to  do?" 
she  asked  him,  with  a  shade  of  scorn  and  her  most  professional  air. 
"  And  don't  suppose  that  such  a  case  occui's  often.  It  is  a  very 
rare  thing  for  us  to  undertake  night-nursing  at  all." 

"  Can  you  tell  me  what  the  case  was?  " 

She  told  him  vaguely,  describing  also  in  a  few  words  her  en- 
counter with  Dr.  Blank. 

"I  suppose  he  will  make  a  fuss,"  she  said,  with  a  restless  look, 
"  and  that  I  shall  be  blamed." 

"  I  should  think  youi-  second  doctor  will  take  care  of  that !  "  said 
Hallin. 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  345 

"  I  don't  know.  1  couldn't  help  it.  But  it  is  one  of  our  first 
principles  not  to  question  a  doctor.  And  last  week  too  I  got  the 
Association  into  trouble.  A  patient  I  had  been  nursing  for  weeks 
and  got  quite  fond  of  had  to  be  removed  to  hospital.  Slie  asked 
me  to  cut  her  hair.  It  was  matted  dreadfully,  and  would  have 
been  cut  off  directly  she  got  to  tlie  ward.  So  I  cut  it,  left  her  all 
comfortable,  and  was  to  come  back  at  one  to  meet  the  doctor  and 
help  get  her  off.  When  1  came,  I  found  the  whole  court  in  an 
uproar.  The  sister  of  the  woman,  who  had  been  watching  for  me, 
stood  on  the  doorstep,  and  implored  me  to  go  away.  The  husband 
had  gone  out  of  his  senses  with  rage  because  I  had  cut  his  wife's 
hair  without  his  consent.  '  He'll  murder  you,  Nuss  ! '  said  the 
sister, 'if  he  sees  you!  Don't  come  in!  —  he's  mad  —  he's  heen 
going  round  on  'is  'andx  and  knees  on  the  floor  /'  "  — 

Hallin  interrupted  with  a  shout  of  laughter.  JNIarcella  laughed 
too  ;  but  to  his  amazement  he  saw  that  her  hand  shook,  and  that 
there  were  tears  in  her  ej'es. 

"  It's  all  very  well,"  she  said  with  a  sigh,  "  but  I  had  to  come 
away  in  disgrace,  all  the  street  looking  on.  And  he  made  such  a 
fuss  at  the  office  as  never  was.  It  was  unfortunate — we  don't 
want  the  people  set  against  the  nurses.  And  now  Dr.  Blank!  —  I 
seem  to  be  always  getting  into  scrapes.  It  is  different  from  hos- 
pital, where  everything  is  settled  for  one." 

Hallin  could  hardly  believe  his  ears.  Such  womanish  terrors 
and  depressions  from  Marcella  Boyce  1  Was  she,  after  all,  too 
young  for  the  work,  or  was  there  some  fret  of  the  soul  reducing 
her  natural  force  ?  He  felt  an  lanwonted  impulse  of  tenderness 
towards  her  —  such  as  one  might  feel  towards  a  tired  child — and 
set  himself  to  cheer  and  rest  her. 

He  had  succeeded  to  some  extent,  when  he  saw  her  give  a  little 
start,  and  following  her  eyes  he  perceived  that  unconsciously  his 
arm,  which  was  resting  on  the  table,  had  i^ushed  into  her  view  a 
photograph  in  a  little  frame,  which  had  been  hitherto  concealed 
from  her  by  a  glass  of  flowers.  He  would  have  quietly  put  it  out 
of  sight  again,  but  she  sat  up  in  her  chair. 

"Will  you  give  it  me?"  she  said,  putting  out  her  hand. 
.  He  gave  it  her  at  once. 

"Alice  brought  it  home  from  Miss  Raeburn  the  other  day. 
His  aunt  made  him  sit  to  one  of  the  photographers  who  are 
always  besieging  public  men.     We  thought  it  good." 

"  It  is  very  good,"  she  said,  after  a  pause.  "Is  the  hair  really  — 
as  gTey  as  that  ?  "     She  pointed  to  it. 

"  Quite.  I  am  very  glad  that  he  is  going  off  with  Lord 
Maxwell  to  Italy.  It  will  be  ten  days'  break  for  him  at  any 
fate.     His  work  this  last  year  has  been  very  heavy.     He  has  had 


346  MARCEL  LA  book  hi 

his  grandfather's  to  do  really,  as  well  as  his  own ;  and  this  Com- 
mission has  been  a  stiif  job  too.  I  am  rather  sorry  that  he  has 
taken  this  new  post." 

"  What  post  ?  " 

"Didn't  you  hear?  They  have  made  him  Under-Secretary  to 
the  Home  Department.     So  that  he  is  now  in  the  Government." 

She  put  back  the  photograph,  and  moved  her  chair  a  little  so 
as  to  see  more  of  the  plane  trees  and  the  strips  of  sunset  cloud. 

"How  is  Lord  Maxwell?"  she  asked  presently. 

"  Much  clianged.  It  might  end  in  a  sudden  break-up  at  any 
time." 

Ilallin  saw  a  slight  contraction  pass  over  her  face.  He  knew 
that  she  had  always  felt  an  affection  for  Lord  Maxwell.  Suddenly 
^larcella  looked  hastily  round  her.  jNliss  Hallin  was  busy  with  a 
little  servant  at  the  other  end  of  the  room  making  arrangements 
for  supper. 

"  Tell  me,"  she  said,  bending  over  the  arm  of  her  chair  and 
speaking  in  a  low,  eager  voice,  "  he  is  beginning  to  forget  it?  " 

Hallin  looked  at  her  in  silence,  but  his  half-sad,  half-ironic 
smile  suggested  an  answer  from  wliich  she  turned  away. 

"  If  he  only  would  !  "  she  said,  speaking  almost  to  herself,  with  a 
kind  of  impatience.     "  He  ought  to  marry,  for  everybody's  sake." 

"  I  see  no  sign  of  his  marrying  —  at  present,"  said  Hallin,  drily. 

He  began  to  put  some  papers  under  his  hand  in  order.  There 
was  a  cold  dignity  in  his  manner  which  she  perfectly  understood. 
Ever  since  that  day  —  that  never-forgotten  day  —  when  he  had 
come  to  her  the  morning  after  her  last  interview  with  Aldous 
Raeburn  —  come  with  reluctance  and  dislike,  because  Aldous  had 
asked  it  of  him  —  and  had  gone  away  her  friend,  more  drawn  to 
her,  more  touched  by  her  than  he  had  ever  been  in  the  days  of  the 
engagement,  their  relation  on  this  subject  had  been  the  same. 
His  sweetness  and  kindness  to  her,  his  influence  over  her  life  dur- 
ing the  past  eighteen  months,  had  been  very  great.  In  that  first 
interview,  the  object  of  which  had  been  to  convey  to  her  a  warn- 
ing on  the  subject  of  the  man  it  was  thought  she  might  allow 
herself  to  marry,  something  in  the  manner  with  which  he  had 
attempted  his  incredibly  difficult  task  —  its  simplicity,  its  delicate 
respect  for  her  personality,  its  suggestion  of  a  character  richer 
and  saintlier  than  anything  she  had  yet  known,  and  unconsciously 
revealing  itself  under  the  stress  of  emotion  —  this  something  had 
suddenly  broken  down  his  pale,  proud  companion,  had  to  his  own 
great  dismay  brought  her  to  tears,  and  to  such  confidences,  such 
indirect  askings  for  help  and  understanding  as  am.azed  them  both. 

Experiences  of  this  kind  were  not  new  to  him.  His  life  con- 
secrated  to    ideas,  devoted   to    the  wresting  of  the  maximum  of 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  347 

human  service  from  a  crippling  physical  weakness  ;  the  precarious 
health  itself  which  cut  him  off  from  a  hundred  ordinary  amuse- 
ments and  occupations,  and  especially  cut  him  off  from  marriage 
—  together  with  the  ardent  temperament,  the  charm,  the  imagina- 
tive insight  which  had  been  his  cradle-gifts  —  these  things  ever 
since  he  was  a  lad  had  made  him  again  and  again  the  guide  and 
prop  of  natures  stronger  and  stormier  tlian  liis  own.  Often  the 
unwilling  guide ;  for  he  had  the  half-impatient  breathless  in- 
stincts of  the  man  who  has  set  himself  a  task,  and  painfully 
doubts  whether  he  will  have  power  and  time  to  finish  it.  The 
claims  made  upon  him  seemed  to  him  often  to  cost  him  physical 
and  brain  energy  he  could  ill  spare. 

But  his  quick  tremulous  sympathy  rendered  him  really  a  de- 
fenceless prey  in  such  matters.  Marcella  threw  herself  upon  him 
as  others  had  done ;  and  there  was  no  help  for  it.  Since  their 
first  memorable  interview,  at  long  intervals,  he  had  written  to  her 
and  she  to  him.  Of  her  hospital  life,  till  to-night,  she  had  never 
told  him  much.  Her  letters  had  been  the  passionate  outpourings 
of  a  nature  sick  of  itself,  and  for  the  moment  of  living ;  full  of 
explanations  which  really  explained  little ;  full  too  of  the  un- 
taught pangs  and  questionings  of  a  mind  which  had  never  given 
any  sustained  or  exhaustive  effort  to  any  iihilosophical  or  social 
question,  and  yet  was  in  a  sense  tortured  by  them  all —  athirst  for 
an  impossible  justice,  and  aflame  for  ideals  mocked  first  and  above 
all  by  the  writer's  own  weakness  and  defect.  Hallin  had  felt 
them  interesting,  sad,  and,  in  a  sense,  fine ;  but  he  had  never 
braced  himself  to  answer  them  without  groans.  There  were  so 
many  other  people  in  the  world  in  the  same  plight ! 

Nevertheless,  all  through  the  growth  of  friendship  one  thing 
had  never  altered  between  them  from  the  beginning  —  Hallin's 
irrevocable  judgment  of  the  treatment  she  had  bestowed  on 
Aldous  Raeburn.  Never  throughout  the  whole  course  of  their 
acquaintance  had  he  expressed  that  judgment  to  her  in  so  many 
words.  Notwithstanding,  she  knew  perfectly  well  both  the  nature 
and  the  force  of  it.  It  lay  like  a  rock  in  the  stream  of  their 
friendship.  The  currents  of  talk  might  circle  round  it,  imj^lj'^  it, 
glance  off  from  it ;  they  left  it  unchanged.  At  the  root  of  his 
mind  towards  her,  at  the  bottom  of  his  gentle  sensitive  nature, 
there  was  a  sternness  which  he  often  forgot  —  she  never. 

This  hard  fact  in  their  relation  had  insensibly  influenced  her 
greatly,  was  constantly  indeed  working  in  and  upon  her,  especially 
since  the  chances  of  her  nursing  career  had  brought  her  to  settle  in 
this  district,  within  a  stone's  throw  of  him  and  his  sister,  so  that 
she  saw  them  often  and  intimately.  But  it  worked  in  different 
ways.     Sometimes  —  as  to-night  —  it  evoked  a  kind  of  defiance. 


348  MARCELLA  book  hi 

A  minute  or  two  after  he  had  made  his  remark  about  Aldous, 
she  said  to  him  suddenly : 

"  I  had  a  letter  from  Mr.  Wharton  to-day.  He  is  coming  to  tea 
with  me  to-morrow,  and  I  shall  probably  go  to  the  House  on  Fri- 
day with  Edith  Craven  to  hear  him  speak." 

Hallin  gave  a  slight  start  at  the  name.  Then  he  said  nothing ; 
but  went  on  sorting  some  letters  of  the  day  into  different  heaps. 
His  silence  roused  her  irritation. 

"  Do  you  remember,"  she  said,  in  a  low,  energetic  voice,  "  that  I 
told  you  I  could  never  be  ungrateful,  never  forget  what  he  had 
done  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  remember,"  he  said,  not  without  a  certain  sharpness  of 
tone.  "  Yon  spoke  of  giving  him  help  if  he  ever  asked  it  of  you  — 
has  he  asked  it  ?  " 

She  explained  that  what  he  seemed  to  be  asking  was  Louis 
Craven's  help,  and  that  his  overtures  with  regard  to  the  Labour 
Clarion  were  particularly  opportune,  seeing  that  Louis  was  pining 
to  be  able  to  marry,  and  was  losing  heart,  hope,  and  health  for 
want  of  some  fixed  employment.  She  spoke  warmly  of  her  friends 
and  their  troubles,  and  Hallin's  inward  distaste  had  to  admit  that 
all  she  said  was  plausible.  Since  the  moment  in  that  strange  talk 
which  had  drawn  them  together,  when  she  had  turned  upon  him 
with  the  passionate  cry —  "  I  see  what  you  mean,  perfectly  !  but  I 
am  not  going  to  marry  Mr.  Wharton,  so  don't  trouble  to  warn  me 
—  for  the  matter  of  that  he  has  warned  me  himself: — but  my 
gratitude  he  Aa,s  earned,  and  if  he  asks  for  it  I  will  never  deny  it 
him"  —  since  that  moment  there  had  been  no  word  of  Wharton 
between  them.  At  the  bottom  of  his  heart  Hallin  distrusted  her, 
and  was  ashamed  of  himself  because  of  it.  His  soreness  and  jeal- 
ousy for  his  friend  knew  no  bounds.  "  If  that  were  to  come  on 
again"  —  he  was  saying  to  himself  now,  as  she  talked  to  him — "I 
could  not  bear  it,  I  could  not  forgive  her !  " 

He  only  wished  that  she  would  give  up  talking  about  Wharton 
altogether.  But,  on  the  contrary,  she  would  talk  of  him  —  and 
with  a  curious  persistence.  She  nmst  needs  know  what  Hallin 
thought  of  his  career  in  Parliament,  of  his  prospects,  of  his  powers 
as  a  speaker.  Hallin  answered  shortly,  like  some  one  approached 
on  a  subject  for  which  he  cares  nothing. 

"  Yet,  of  course,  it  is  not  that ;  it  is  injustice !  "  she  said  to  her- 
self, with  vehemence.  "He  must  care;  they  are  his  subjects,  his 
interests  too.     But  he  will  not  look  at  it  dispassionately,  because  — " 

So  they  fell  out  with  each  other  a  little,  and  the  talk  dragged. 
Yet,  all  the  while,  Marcella's  inner  mind  was  conscious  of  quite 
different  thoughts.  How  good  it  was  to  be  here,  in  this  room, 
beside  these  two  people!     She  must   show  herself   fractious  and 


CHAP.   V  MARCELLA  349 

difficult  with  Halliii  sometimes;  it  was  her  nature.  But  in  reality, 
that  slight  and  fragile  form,  that  spiritual  presence  were  now 
shrined  in  the  girl's  eager  reverence  and  affection.  She  felt 
towards  him  as  many  a  Catholic  has  felt  towards  his  director ; 
though  the  hidden  yearning  to  be  led  by  him  was  often  oddly  cov- 
ered, as  now,  by  an  outer  self-assertion.  Perhaps  her  quarrel  with 
him  was  that  he  would  not  lead  her  enough  —  would  not  tell  her 
precisely  enough  what  she  was  to  do  with  herself. 


CHAPTER  V 

While  she  and  Hallin  were  sitting  thus,  momentarily  out  of 
tune  with  each  other,  the  silence  was  suddenly  broken  by  a 
familiar  voice. 

"  I  say,  Hallin  —  is  this  all  right  ?  " 

The  words  came  from  a  young  man  who,  having  knocked  un- 
heeded, opened  the  door,  and  cautiously  put  in  a  curly  head. 

"  Frank !  — is  that  you?     Come  in,"  cried  Hallin,  springing  up. 

Frank  Leven  came  in,  and  at  once  perceived  the  lady  sitting  in 
the  window, 

"  Well,  I  am  glad  !  "  he  cried,  striding  across  the  room  and  shak- 
ing Hallin's  hand  by  the  way.  "  Miss  Boyce !  I  thought  none 
of  your  friends  were  ever  going  to  get  a  sight  of  you  again  I 
Why,  what  —  " 

He  drew  back  scanning  her,  a  gay  look  of  quizzing  surprise  on 
his  fair  boy's  face. 

"  He  expected  me  in  cap  and  apron,"  said  Marcella,  laughing ; 
"or  means  to  pretend  he  did." 

"  I  expected  a  sensation  !  And  here  you  are,  just  as  you  were, 
onlj'' twice  as  —  I  say,  Hallin,  doesn't  she  look  well!"  —  this  in  a 
stage  aside  to  Hallin,  while  the  speaker  was  drawing  off  his  gloves, 
and  still  studying  Marcella. 

"  Well,  /  think  she  looks  tked,"  said  Hallin,  with  a  little  attempt 
at  a  smile,  but  turning  away.  Everybody  felt  a  certain  tension, 
a  certain  danger,  even  in  the  simplest  words,  and  Miss  Hallin's  call 
to  supper  was  very  welcome. 

The  frugal  meal  went  gaily.  The  chattering  Christ-church  boy 
brought  to  it  a  breath  of  happy,  careless  life,  to  which  the  three 
others  —  over-driven  and  over-pressed,  all  of  them  —  responded 
with  a  kind  of  eagerness.  Hallin  especially  delighted  in  him, 
and  would  have  out  all  his  budget  —  his  peacock's  pride  at 
having  been  just  put  into  the  'Vai'sity  eleven,  his  cricket  engage- 
ments for  the  summer,  his  rows  with  his  dons,  above  all  his  lasting 
amazement  that  he  should  have  just  scraped  through  his  Mods. 


350  MARC  ELLA  book  hi 

"  I  thought  those  Roman  emperors  would  have  done  for  me  !  " 
he  declared,  with  a  child's  complacency.  "Brutes!  I  couldn't 
remember  them.  I  learnt  them  up  and  down,  backwards  and  for- 
wards —  but  it  was  no  good ;  they  nearly  dished  me  !  " 

"Yet  it  comes  back  to  me,"  said  Hallin,  slyly,  "that  when  a  cer- 
tain person  was  once  asked  to  name  the  winner  of  the  Derby  in 
some  obscure  year,  he  began  at  the  beginning,  and  gave  us  all  of 
them,  from  first  to  last,  without  a  hitch." 

"  The  winner  of  the  Derby ! "  said  the  lad,  eagerly,  bending  for- 
ward with  his  hands  on  his  knees ;  "  why,  I  should  rather  think  so  ! 
That  isn't  memorj^;  that's  knoiuledge! —  Goodness  !  who's  this?" 

The  last  remark  was  addressed  sotto  voce  to  Marcella.  Supper 
was  just  over,  and  the  two  guests,  with  Hallin,  had  returned  to 
the  window,  while  Miss  Hallin,  stoutly  refusing  their  help,  herself 
cleared  the  table  and  set  all  straight. 

Hallin,  hearing  a  knock,  had  gone  to  the  door  while  Leven  was 
speaking.  Four  men  came  crowding  in,  all  of  them  apparently 
well  known  both  to  Hallin  and  his  sister.  The  last  two  seemed  to 
be  workmen  ;  the  others  were  Bennett,  Hallin's  old  and  tried  friend 
among  the  Labour-leaders,  and  Nehemiah  Wilkins,  M..P.  Hallin 
introduced  them  all  to  Marcella  and  Leven ;  but  the  new-comers 
took  little  notice  of  any  one  but  their  host,  and  were  soon  seated 
about  him  discussing  a  matter  already  apparently  familiar  to  them, 
and  into  which  Hallin  had  thrown  himself  at  once  with  that  pas- 
sionate directness  which,  in  the  social  and  speculative  field,  replaced 
his  ordinary  gentleness  of  manner.  He  seemed  to  be  in  strong 
disagTeement  with  the  rest  —  a  disagreement  which  troubled  him- 
self and  irritated  them. 

Marcella  watched  them  with  quick  curiosity  from  the  window 
where  she  was  sitting,  and  would  have  liked  to  go  forward  to 
listen.  But  Frank  Leven  turned  suddenly  round  upon  her  with 
sparkling  eyes. 

"  Oh,  I  say !  don't  go.  Do  come  and  sit  here  with  me  a  bit. 
Oh,  isn't  it  rum!  isn't  it  rum!  Look  at  Hallin,  —  those  are  the 
people  whom  he  cares  to  talk  to.  That's  a  shoemaker,  that  man  to 
the  left  —  really  an  awfully  cute  fellow  —  and  this  man  in  front,  I 
think  he  told  rne  he  was  a  mason,  a  Socialist  of  course  —  would 
like  to  string  ine  up  to-morrow.  Did  you  ever  see  such  a  counte- 
nance? Whenever  that  man  begins,  I  think  we  must  be  precious 
near  to  shooting.  And  he's  pious  too,  would  pray  over  us  first  and 
shoot  us  afterwards  —  which  isn't  the  case,  I  understand,  with  many 
of  'era.  Then  the  others  —  you  know  them?  That's  Bennett  — 
regular  good  fellow  —  always  telling  his  pals  not  to  make  fools  of 
themselves  —  for  which  of  course  they  love  him  no  more  than  they 
are    oblicfed  —  And    Wilkins — oh!     Wilkins"  —  he     chuckled  — 


CHAP,  V  MARCELLA  351 

"they  say  it'll  coine  to  a  beautiful  row  in  the  House  before  they've 
done,  between  him  and  my  charming  cousin,  Harry  Wharton. 
My  father  says  he  backs  Wilkins." 

Then  suddenly  the  lad  recollected  himself  and  his  clear  cheek 
coloured  a  little  after  a  hasty  glance  at  his  companion.  He  fell 
to  silence  and  looking  at  his  boots.  IMarcella  wondered  what  was 
the  matter  with  liim.  Since  her  flight  from  Mellor  slie  had  lived, 
so  to  speak,  with  her  head  in  the  sand.  She  herself  had  never 
talked  directly  of  her  own  affairs  to  anybody.  Her  sensitive 
pride  did  not  let  her  realise  that,  notwithstanding,  all  the  world 
was  aware  of  them. 

"  I  don't  suppose  you  know  mucli  about  your  cousin  !  "  she  said 
to  liim  with  a  little  scorn. 

"  Well,  I  don't  want  to  !  "  said  the  lad,  "  that's  one  comfort !  But 
I  don't  know  anything  about  anything  !  —  Miss  Boyce  !  " 

He  plunged  his  head  in  his  hands,  and  Marcella,  looking  at  him, 
saw  at  once  that  she  was  meant  to  understand  she  had  woe  and 
lamentation  beside  her. 

Her  black  eyes  danced  with  laughter.  At  JNIellor  .she  had  been 
several  times  his  confidante.  The  handsome  lad  was  not  appar- 
ently very  fond  of  his  sisters  and  had  taken  to  her  from  the  begin- 
ning.    To-night  she  recognised  the  old  symptoms. 

"  What,  you  have  been  getting  into  scrapes  again?"  she  said  — 
"  how  many  since  we  met  last  ?  " 

"  There  !  you  make  fun  of  it !  "  he  said  indignantly  from  behind 
his  fingers  —  "you're  like  all  the  rest." 

Marcella  teased  him  a  little  more  till  at  last  she  was  astonished 
by  a  flash  of  genuine  wrath  from  the  hastily  uncovered  ej'es. 

"  If  you're  only  going  to  chaff  a  fellow  let's  go  over  there  and 
talk!  And  yet  I  did  want  to  tell  you  about  it — you  were  awfully 
kind  to  me  down  at  home.  I  want  to  tell  you  —  and  I  don't  want 
to  tell  you  —  perhaps  I  ouf/htn't  to  tell  you  —  you'll  think  me  a  brute, 
I  dare  say,  an  ungentlemanly  brute  for  speaking  of  it  at  all  —  and 
yet  somehow  —  " 

The  boy,  crimson,  bit  his  lips.  IMarcella,  arrested  and  puzzled, 
laid  a  hand  on  his  arm.  She  had  been  used  to  these  motherly  ways 
with  him  at  Melloi",  on  the  strength  of  her  seniority,  so  inade- 
quately measured  by  its  two  years  or  so  of  time ! 

"  I  won't  laugh,"  she  said,  "  tell  me." 

"  No  —  really  ?—  shall  I  ?  " 

Whereupon  there  burst  forth  a  history  precisely  ^milar  it  seemed 
to  some  half  dozen  others  she  had  already  heard  from  the  same 
lips.  A  pretty  girl  —  or  rather  "  an  exquisite  creature  ! "  met  at  the 
house  of  .some  relation  in  Scotland,  met  again  at  the  "Boats"  at 
Oxford,  and  yet  again  at  Commemoration  balls,  Nuneham  picnics, 


352  MARCELLA  book  hi 

and  the  rest ;  adored  and  adorable ;  yet,  of  course,  a  sphinx  born 
for  the  torment  of  men,  taking  her  haughty  way  over  a  prostrate 
sex,  kind  to-day,  cruel  to-morrow ;  not  to  be  won  by  money,  yet, 
naturally,  not  to  be  won  without  it ;  possessed  like  Rose  Aylmer  of 
"  every  virtue,  every  grace,"  whether  of  form  or  family ;  yet  making 
nothing  but  a  devastating  and  death-dealing  use  of  them  —  how 
familiar  it  all  was  !  —  and  how  many  more  of  them  there  seemed 
to  be  in  the  world,  on  a  man's  reckoning,  than  on  a  woman's ! 

"And  you  know,"  said  the  lad,  eagerly,  "though  she's  so  fright- 
fully pretty  —  well,  frightfully  fetching,  rather  —  and  well  dressed 
and  all  the  rest  of  it,  she  isn't  a  bit  silly,  not  one  of  your  empty- 
headed  girls  —  not  she.  She's  read  a  lot  of  things  —  a  lot!  I'm 
sure,  Miss  Boyce  " — he  looked  at  her  confidently,  —  "if  you  were 
to  see  her  you'd  think  her  awfully  clever.  And  yet  she's  so  little 
—  and  so  dainty  —  and  she  dances  —  my  goodness!  you  should 
see  her  dance,  skirt-dance  I  mean  —  Letty  Lind  isn't  in  it !  She's 
good  too,  awfully  good.  I  think  her  mother's  a  most  dreadful 
old  bore  —  well,  no,  I  didn't  mean  that  —  of  course  I  didn't  mean 
that!  —  but  she's  fussy,  you  know,  and  invalidy,  and  has  to  be 
wrapped  up  in  shawls,  and  dragged  about  in  bath  chairs,  and 
Betty's  an  angel  to  her  —  she  is  really  —  though  her  mother's 
always  snapping  her  head  off.     And  as  to  the  poor  —  " 

Something  in  his  tone,  in  the  way  he  had  of  fishing  for  her  ap- 
proval, sent  Marcel  la  into  a  sudden  fit  of  laughter.  Then  she  put 
out  a  hand  to  restrain  this  plunging  lover. 

"  Look  here  —  do  come  to  the  point  —  have  you  proposed  to  her?  " 

"  I  should  rather  think  I  have !  "  said  the  boy,  fervently.  "  About 
once  a  week  since  Christmas.  Of  course  she's  played  with  me  — 
that  sort  always  does  —  but  I  think  I  might  really  have  a  chance 
with  her,  if  it  weren't  for  her  mother  —  horrible  old  —  no,  of  course 
I  don't  mean  that !  But  now  it  comes  in  —  what  I  oughtn't  to  tell 
you  —  I  hioio  I  oughtn't  to  tell  you!  I'm  always  making  a  beastly 
mess  of  it.     It's  because  I  can't  help  talking  of  it !  " 

And  shaking  his  curly  head  in  despair,  he  once  more  plunged 
his  red  cheeks  into  his  hands  and  fell  abruptly  silent. 

Marcella  coloured  for  sympathy.  "  I  really  wish  you  wouldn't 
talk  in  riddles,"  she  said.  "  What  is  the  matter  with  you?  —  of 
course  you  must  tell  me." 

"  Well,  I  know  you  won't  mind  !  "  cried  the  lad,  emerging.  "  As 
if  you  could  mind  I  But  it  sounds  like  my  impudence  to  be  talk- 
ing to  you  aboift  —  about  —  You  see,"  he  blurted  out,  "she's  going 
to  Italy  with  the  Raeburns.  She's  a  connection  of  theirs,  somehow, 
and  Miss  Raeburn's  taken  a  fancy  to  her  lately  —  and  her  mother's 
treated  me  like  dirt  ever  since  they  asked  her  to  go  to  Italy  —  and 
naturally  a  fellow  sees  what  that  means  —  and  what  her  mother's 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  353 

after.  I  don't  believe  Betty  would ;  he's  too  old  for  her,  isn't  he? 
Oh,  my  goodness!  "  —  tliis  time  ho  smote  his  knee  in  real  despera- 
tion—  "now  I  hare  done  it.  I'm  simply  bursting  always  with  the 
thing  I'd  rather  cut  my  head  off  than  say.  Wliy  they  make  'em 
like  me  I  don't  know  !  " 

"  You  mean,"  said  Marcella,  witli  impatience  —  "  that  her  mother 
wants  her  to  marry  IVIr.  llaeburn  ?" 

He  looked  round  at  his  companion.  She  was  lying  back  in  a 
deep  chair,  her  hands  lightly  clasped  on  her  knee.  Something  in 
her  attitude,  in  the  pose  of  the  tragic  head,  in  the  expression  of 
the  face  stamped  to-night  with  a  fatigue  w-hich  was  also  a  dignity, 
struck  a  real  compunction  into  his  mood  of  vanity  and  excitement. 
He  had  simply  not  been  able  to  resist  the  temptation  to  talk  to 
her.  She  reminded  him  of  the  Raeburns,  and  the  Raeburns  were 
in  his  mind  at  the  present  moment  by  day  and  by  night.  He  knew 
that  he  was  probably  doing  an  indelicate  and  indiscreet  thing,  but 
all  the  same  his  boyish  egotism  would  not  be  restrained  from  the 
headlong  pursuit  of  his  own  emotions.  There  was  in  him  too 
such  a  burning  curiosity  as  to  how  she  would  take  it  —  what  she 
would  say. 

Now  hovvever  he  felt  a  genuine  shrinking.  His  look  changed. 
Drawing  his  chair  close  up  to  her  he  began  a  series  of  penitent  and 
self-contradictory  excuses  which  Marcella  soon  broke  in  iipon. 

"  I  don't  know  why  you  talk  like  that,"  she  said,  looking  at  him 
steadily.  "  Do  you  suppose  I  can  go  on  all  my  life  without  hear- 
ing Mr.  Raeburn's  name  mentioned?  And  don't  apologise  so 
much!  It  really  doesn't  matter  what  I  su2:>pose  —  that  you  think 
—  about  my  present  state  of  mind.  It  is  very  simple.  I  ought 
never  to  have  accepted  Mr.  Raeburn.  I  behaved  badly.  I  know 
it  —  and  everybody  knows  it.  Still  one  has  to  go  on  living  one's 
life  somehow.  The  point  is  that  I  am  rather  the  wrong  person 
for  you  to  come  to  just  now,  for  if  there  is  one  thing  I  ardently 
wish  about  Mr.  Raeburn,  it  is  that  he  should  get  himself  married." 

Frank  Leven  looked  at  her  in  bewildered  dismay. 

"  I  never  thought  of  that,"  he  said. 

"Well,  you  might,  mightn't  you?" 

For  another  short  space  there  was  silence  between  them,  while 
the  rush  of  talk  in  the  centre  of  the  room  was  still  loud  and  un- 
spent. 

Then  she  rated  herself  for  want  of  sympathy.  Frank  sat  beside 
her  shy  and  uncomfortable,  his  confidence  chilled  away. 

"  So  you  think  Miss  Raeburn  has  views?  "  she  asked  him,  smil- 
ing, and  in  her  most  ordinary  voice. 

The  boy's  eye  brightened  again  with  the  implied  permission  to 
go  on  chattering. 
2a 


354  MARCELLA  book  hi 

"  I  know  she  has  1  Betty's  brothei-  as  good  as  told  me  that  she 
and  Mrs.  Macdonald  — that's  Betty's  mother  —  she  hasn't  got  a 
father  —  had  talked  it  over.  And  now  Betty's  going  with  them 
to  Italy,  and  Aldous  is  go  big  too  for  ten  days  —  and  when  I  go  to 
the  Macdonalds'  Mrs.  Macdonald  treats  me  as  if  I  were  a  little  chap 
in  jackets,  and  Betty  worries  me  to  death.     It's  sickening !  " 

"  And  how  about  Mr.  Raeburn  ?  " 

"Oh,  Aldous  seems  to  like  her  very  much,"  he  said  despondently^. 
"She's  always  teasing  and  amusing  him.  When  she's  there  she 
never  lets  him  alone.  She  harries  him  out.  She  makes  him  read 
to  her  and  ride  with  her.  She  makes  him  discuss  all  sorts  of 
things  with  her  you'd  never  think  Aldous  would  discuss — her 
lovers  and  her  love  affairs,  and  being  in  love  !  —  it's  extraordinary 
the  way  she  drives  him  round.  ,At  Easter  she  and  her  mother 
were  staying  at  the  Court,  and  one  night  Betty  told  nie  she  was 
bored  to  death.  It  was  a  very  smart  party,  but  everything  was  so 
flat  and  everybody  was  so  dull.  So  she  suddenly  got  up  and  ran 
across  to  Aldous.  'Xow  look  here,  Mr.  Aldous,'  she  said;  'this'll 
never  do  !  you've  got  to  come  and  dance  with  me,  and  /jM,s7i  those 
chairs  and  tables  aside'  —  I  can  fancy  the  little  stamp  she'd  give 

—  'and  make  those  other  people  dance  too.'     And  she  made  him 

—  she  positively  made  him.  Aldous  declared  he  didn't  dance, 
and  she  wouldn't  have  a  word  of  it.  And  presently  she  got  to  all 
her  tricks,  skirt-dancing  and  the  rest  of  it  —  and  of  course  the 
evening  went  like  smoke." 

Marcella's  eyes,  unusually  wide  open,  were  somewhat  intently 
fixed  on  the  speaker. 

"And  Mr.  Raeburn  liked  it  ?"  she  asked  in  a  tone  that  sounded 
incredulous. 

"Didn't  he  just?  She  told  me  they  got  regular  close  friends 
after  that,  and  he  told  her  everything  —  oh,  well,"  said  the  lad, 
embarrassed,  and  clutching  at  his  usual  formula — "of  com-se,  I 
didn't  mean  that.  And  she's  fearfully  flattered,  you  can  see  she  is, 
and  she  tells  me  that  she  adores  him  —  that  he's  the  only  great 
man  she's  ever  known  —  tiiat  I'm  not  fit  to  black  his  boots,  and 
ought  to  be  grateful  whenever  he  speaks  to  me  —  and  all  that  sort 
of  rot.  And  now  she's  going  off  with  them.  I  shall  have  to  shoot 
myself  —  I  declare  I  shall  I  " 

"Well,  not  yet,"  said  Marcella,  in  a  soothing  voice;  "the  case 
isn't  clear  enough.  Wait  till  they  come  back.  Shall  we  move? 
I'm  going  over  tliere  to  listen  to  that  talk.  But  —  first  — come  and 
see  me  whenever  you  like  —  3  to  4.o0,  Brown's  Buildings,  Maine 
Street  —  and  tell  me  how  this  goes  on?  " 

She  spoke  with  a  careless  lightness,  laughing  at  him  with  a  half 
sisterly  freedom.      She  had  risen  from  her    seat,  and  he,  whose 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  365 

thoughts  had  been  wrapped  up  for  moutlis  in  one  of  the  smallest 
of  the  sex,  was  suddenly  struck  with  her  height  and  stately  gestui-e 
as  she  moved  away  from  him. 

"By  Jove!  Why  didn't  she  stick  to  Aldous,"  he  said  to  himself 
discontentedly  as  his  eyes  followed  her.  "  It  was  only  her  cranks, 
and  of  course  she'll  get  rid  of  tliem.     Just  like  my  luck  !  " 

Meanwhile  Marcella  took  a  seat  next  to  Miss  Hallin,  who  looked 
up  from  her  knitting  to  smile  at  her.  The  girl  fell  into  the  atti- 
tude of  listening ;  but  for  some  minutes  she  was  not  listening  at 
all.  She  was  reflecting  how  little  men  knew  of  each  otlier !  — even 
the  most  intimate  friends  —  and  trying  to  imagine  what  Ahlous 
Raeburn  would  be  like,  married  to  such  a  charmer  as  Frank  had 
sketched.  His  friendship  for  her  meant,  of  course,  the  attraction 
of  contraries  —  one  of  the  most  promising  of  all  possible  beginnings. 
On  the  whole,  she  thought  Frank's  chances  were  poor. 

Then,  unexpectedly,  her  ear  was  caught  by  Wharton's  name,  and 
she  discovered  tiiat  what  was  going  on  beside  her  was  a  passionate 
discussion  of  his  present  position  and  prospects  in  the  Labour 
party  —  a  discussion,  however,  mainly  confined  to  Wilkiiis  and  the 
two  workmen.  Bennett  had  tlie  air  of  tlie  shrewd  and  kindly 
spectator  who  has  his  own  reasons  for  treating  a  situation  with 
reserve;  and  HaUin  was  lying  back  in  his  chair  flushed  and  worn- 
out.  The  previous  debate,  whicii  had  now  merged  in  these  ques- 
tions of  men  and  personalities,  had  made  him  miserable  ;  he  had  no 
heart  for  anything  more.  Miss  Hallin  observed  liim  anxiously, 
and  made  restless  movements  now  and  then,  as  though  she  had  it 
in  her  mind  to  send  all  her  guests  away. 

The  two  Socialist  workmen  were  talking  strongly  in  favour  of 
an  organised  and  distinct  Labour  party,  and  of  Wliarton's  leader- 
ship. They  referred  constantly  to  Parnell,  and  what  he  had  done 
for  "  those  Irish  fellows."  The  only  way  to  make  Labour  formid- 
able in  the  House  was  to  learn  the  lesson  of  Unionism  and  of 
Parnellism,  to  act  together  and  strike  together,  to  make  of  the 
party  a  "  two-handed  engine,"  ready  to  smite  Tory  and  Liberal 
impartially.  To  this  end  a  separate  organisation,  separate  place 
in  the  House,  separate  Whips  —  they  were  ready,  nay  clamorous, 
for  them  all.  And  they  were  equally  determined  on  Harr}'  Whar- 
ton as  a  leader.  They  spoke  of  the  Clarion  with  enthusiasm,  and 
declared  that  its  owner  was  already  an  independent  power,  and 
was,  moreover,  as  "  straight  "  as  he  was  sharp. 

The  contention  and  the  pi'aise  lashed  Wilkins  into  fury.  After 
making  one  or  two  visible  efforts  at  a  sarcastic  self-control  which 
came  to  nothing,  he  broke  out  into  a  flood  of  invective  which  left 
the  rest  of  the  room  staring.     JMareeila  found  herself  indignantly 


356  MARCELLA  book  in 

wondering  who  this  big  man,  with  liis  fierce  eyes,  long,  j)uffy 
cheeks,  coarse  black  hair,  and  North-country  accent,  might  be. 
Why  did  he  talk  in  this  way,  with  these  epithets,  this  venom  ?  It 
was  intolerable  ! 

Hallin  roused  himself  from  his  fatigue  to  play  the  peace-maker. 
But  some  of  the  things  AVilkins  had  been  saying  had  put  up  the 
backs  of  the  two  workmen,  and  the  talk  flamed  up  unmanageably 

—  Wilkins's  dialect  getting  more  pronounced  with  each  step  of 
the  argument. 

"  Well,  if  I'd  ever  ha'  thowt  that  I  war  coomin'  to  Lunnon  to  put 
myself  and  my  party  oonder  the  heel  o'  Muster  Harry  Wharton, 
I'd  ha'  stayed  at  home,  I  tell  tha,"  cried  Wilkius,  slapping  his  knee. 
"  If  it's  to  be  the  People's  party,  why,  in  the  name  o'  God,  must  vo 
put  a  yoong  ripstitch  like  yon  at  the  head  of  it?  a  man  who'll 
just  mak  use  of  us  all,  you  an'  me,  and  ivery  man  Jack  of  us,  for 
his  own  advancement,  an'  ull  kick  us  down  when  he's  done  with 
us!  Why  shouldn't  he ?  What  is  he?  Is  he  a  man  of  us  —  bone 
of  our  bone  ?  He's  a  landlord,  and  an  aristocrat,  I  tell  tha ! 
What  have  the  likes  of  him  ever  been  but  thorns  in  our  side  ? 
When  have  the  landlords  ever  gone  with  the  people  ?  Have  they  not 
been  the  blight  and  the  curse  of  the  country  for  hun'erds  of  years? 
And  you're  goin'  to  tell  me  that  a  man  bred  out  o'  them  —  living 
on  his  rent  and  interest  —  grinding  the  faces  of  the  poor,  I'll  be 
bound  if  the  truth  were  known,  as  all  the  rest  of  them  do  —  is  goin' 
to  lead  me,  an'  those  as'll  act  with  me  to  the  puUin'  down  of  the 
landlords  1  Why  are  we  to  go  lickspittlin'  to  any  man  of  his  sort 
to  do  our  work  for  us?  Let  him  go  to  his  own  class  —  I'm  told 
Mr.  Wharton  is  mighty  fond  of  countesses,  and  they  of  him!  — 
or  let  him  set  up  as  the  friend  of  the  working  man  just  as  he  likes 

—  I'm  quite  agreeable!  —  I  shan't  make  any  bones  about  takin' 
his  vote;  but  I'm  not  goin'  to  make  him  master  over  me,  and 
give  him  the  right  to  speak  for  my  mates  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons.    I'd  cut  my  hand  off  fust !  " 

Leven  grinned  in  the  background.  Bennett  lay  back  in  his 
chair  with  a  worried  look.  Wilkins's  crudities  were  very  distaste- 
ful to  him  both  in  and  out  of  the  House.  The  younger  of  the 
Socialist  workmen,  a  mason,  with  a  strong  square  face,  incon- 
gruously lit  somehow  with  the  eyes  of  the  religious  dreamer,  looked 
at  Wilkins  contemptuously. 

"  There's  none  of  you  in  the  House  will  take  orders,"  he  said 
quickly,  "  and  that's  the  ruin  of  us.  We  all  know  that.  Where 
do  you  think  we'd  have  been  in  the  struggle  with  the  employers, 
if  we'd  gone  about  our  business  as  you're  going  about  yours  in  the 
House  of  Commons  ? " 

"  I'm  not  saying  we  shouldn't  organise,"  said  Wilkins,  fiercely. 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  357 

"  What  I'm  sayin'  is,  get  a  man  of  the  working  class  —  a  man  who 
has  the  tvants  of  the  working  class  —  a  man  whom  the  working- 
class  can  get  a  hold  on  —  to  do  your  business  for  you,  and  not  any 
bloodsucking  landlord  or  capitalist.  It's  a  slap  i'  the  face  to  ivery 
honest  working  man  i'  the  country,  to  mak'  a  Labour  party  and 
put  Harry  Wharton  at  t'  head  of  it !  " 

The  young  Socialist  looked  at  him  askance.  "  Of  course  you'd 
like  it  yourself !  "  was  what  he  was  thinking.  "  But  they'll  take  a 
man  as  can  hold  his  own  with  the  swells  —  and  quite  right  too !  " 

"  And  if  Mr.  Wharton  is  a  landlord  he's  a  good  sort !  "  exclaimed 
the  shoemaker  —  a  tall,  lean  man  in  a  well-bruslied  frock  coat. 
"  There's  many  on  us  knows  as  have  been  to  hear  him  speak,  what 
he's  tried  to  do  about  the  land,  and  the  co-operative  farming.  E's 
straight  is  Mr.  Wharton.  We  'aven't  got  Socialism  yet  —  an'  it 
isn't  'is  fault  bein'  a  landlord.     Ee  was  born  it." 

"  I  tell  tha  he's  playin'  for  his  own  hand !  "  said  Wilkins,  dog- 
gedly, the  red  spot  deepening  on  his  swarthy  cheek  —  "  he's  runnin' 
that  paper  for  his  own  hand —  Haven't  I  had  experience  of  hini? 
I  know  it  —  And  I'll  prove  it  some  day  !  He's  one  for  f eatherin' 
his  own  nest  is  Mr.  Wharton  —  and  when  he's  doon  it  by  makkin' 
fools  of  us,  he'll  leave  us  to  whistle  for  any  good  we're  iver  likely 
to  get  out  o'  him.  He  go  agen  the  landlords  when  it  coom  to  the 
real  toossle,  —  I  know  'em  —  I  tell  tha  —  I  know  'em  !  " 

A  woman's  voice,  clear  and  scornful,  broke  into  the  talk. 

"It's  a  little  strange  to  think,  isn't  it,  that  while  we  in  London 
go  0X1  groaning  and  moaning  about  insanitary  houses,  and  making 
our  small  attempts  here  and  there,  half  of  the  country  poor  of  Eng- 
land have  been  re-housed  in  our  generation  by  these  same  landlords 

—  no  fuss  about  it  —  and  .rents  for  five-roomed  cottages,  some- 
where about  one  and  fourpence  a  week  !  " 

Hallin  swung  his  chair  round  and  looked  at  the  speaker  — 
amazed ! 

Wilkins  also  stared  at  her  under  his  eyebrows.  He  did  not  like 
women  —  least  of  all,  ladies. 

He  gruffly  replied  that  if  they  had  done  anything  like  as  much 
as  she  said  —  which,  he  begged  her  pardon,  but  he  didn't  believe 

—  it  was  done  for  the  landlords'  own  purposes,  either  to  buy  off 
public  opinion,  or  just  for  show  and  aggrandisement.  People  who 
had  prize  pigs  and  prize  cattle  must  have  prize  cottages  of  course 

—  "  with  a  race  of  slaves  inside  'em  !  " 

Marcella,  bright-eyed,  erect,  her  thin  right  hand  hanging  over  her 
knee,  went  avengingly  into  facts  —  the  difference  between  land- 
lords' villages  and  "  open  "  villages ;  the  agrarian  experiments 
made  by  different  great  landlords;  the  advantage  to  the  com- 
munity, even  from  the  Socialist  point  of  view  of  a  system  which 


358  MAECELLA  book  in 

had  preserved  the  land  in  great  blocks,  for  the  ultimate  use  of  the 
State,  as  compared  with  a  system  like  the  French,  which  had  for- 
ever made  Socialism  impossible. 

Hallin's  astonishment  almost  swept  away  his  weariness. 

"  Where  in  the  world  did  she  get  it  all  from,  and  is  she  standing 
on  her  head  or  am  I  ?  " 

After  an  animated  little  debate,  in  which  Bennett  and  the  two 
workmen  joined,  while  Wilkins  sat  for  the  most  part  in  moody, 
contemptuous  silence,  and  Marcella,  her  obstinacy  roused,  carried 
through,  her  defence  of  the  landlords  with  all  a  woman's  love 
of  emphasis  and  paradox,  everybody  rose  simultaneously  to  say 
good-night. 

"  Yoa  ought  to  come  and  lead  a  debate  down  at  our  Limehouse 
club,"  said  Bennett  pleasantly  to  Marcella,  as  she  held  out  her 
hand  to  him  ;  "  you'd  take  a  lot  of  beating." 

"Yet  I'm  a  Venturist,  you  know,"  she  said,  laughing;  "I  am." 

He  shook  his  head,  laughed  too,  and  departed. 

When  the  four  had  gone,  Marcella  turned  upon  Hallin. 

"Are  there  many  of  these  Labour  members  like  thai  ?  " 

Her  tone  was  still  vibrating  and  sarcastic. 

"  He's  not  much  of  a  talker,  our  Nehemiah,"  said  Hallin,  smiling; 
"  but  he  has  the  most  extraordinary  power  as  a  speaker  over  a 
large  popular  audience  that  I  have  ever  seen.  The  man's  honesty 
is  amazing, — it's  his  tempers  and  his  jealousies  get  in  his  way. 
You  astonished  him ;  but,  for  the  matter  of  that,  you  astonished 
Frank  and  me  still  more  !  " 

And  as  he  fell  back  into  his  chair,  Mai'cella  caught  a  flash  of 
expression,  a  tone  that  somehow  put  her  on  her  defence. 

"  I  was  not  going  to  listen  to  such  unjust  stuff  without  a  word. 
Politics  is  one  thing  —  slanderous  abuse  is  another!"  she  said, 
throwing  back  her  head  with  a  gesture  which  instantly  brought 
back  to  Hallin  the  scene  in  the  Mellor  drawing-room,  when  she 
had  denounced  the  game-laws  and  Wharton  had  scored  his  first 
point. 

He  was  silent,  feeling  a  certain  inner  exasperation  with  women 
and  their  ways. 

"  '  She  only  did  it  to  annoy,'"  cried  Frank  Leven;  "  'because  she 
knows  it  teases.'  We  know  very  well  what  she  thinks  of  us.  But 
where  did  you  get  it  all  from,  Miss  Boyce?  I  just  wish  you'd  tell 
me.  There's  a  horrid  Radical  in  the  House  I'm  always  having 
rows  with  —  and  upon  my  word  I  didn't  know  there  was  half  so 
much  to  be  said  for  us  !  " 

Marcella  flushed. 
'"  Never  mind  where  I  got  it !  "  she  said. 

In  reality,  of  course,  it  was  from  those  Agricultural  Reports  she 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  359 

had  worked  through  the  year  before  under  Wharton  "s  teaching,  with 
so  much  angry  zest,  and  to  such  different  pui'pose. 

When  the  door  closed  upon  her  and  upon  Frank  Leven,  who  was 
to  escort  her  home,  Hallin  walked  quickly  over  to  the  table,  and 
stood  looking  for  a  moment  in  a  sort  of  bitter  reverie  at  Raeburn's 
photograph. 

His  sister  followed  him,  and  laid  her  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"  Do  go  to  bed,  Edward !  T  am  afraid  that  talk  has  tired  you 
dreadfully." 

"  It  would  be  no  good  going  to  bed,  dear,"  he  said,  with  a  sigh 
of  exhaustion.  "  I  will  sit  and  read  a  bit,  and  see  if  I  can  get  my- 
self into  sleeping  trim.     But  you  go,  Alice  —  good-night." 

When  she  had  gone  he  threw  himself  into  his  chair  again  with 
the  thought — "She  must  contradict  here  as  she  contradicted 
there!  She  —  and  justice!  If  she  could  have  been  just  to  a  land- 
lord for  one  hour  last  year  —  " 

He  spent  himself  for  a  while  in  endless  chains  of  recollection, 
oppressed  by  the  clearness  of  his  own  brain,  and  thirsting  for  sleep. 
Then  from  the  affairs  of  Raeburn  and  Marcella,  he  passed  with  a 
fresh  sense  of  strain  and  effort  to  his  own.  That  discussion  with 
those  four  men  which  had  filled  the  first  part  of  the  evening  weighed 
upon  him  in  his  weakness  of  nerve,  so  that  suddenly  in  the  phantom 
silence  of  the  night,  all  life  became  an  oppression  and  a  terror,  and 
rest,  either  to-night  or  in  the  future,  a  thing  neyer  to  be  his. 

He  had  come  to  the  moment  of  difficulty,  of  tragedy,  in  a  career 
which  so  far,  in  sj^ite  of  all  drawbacks  of  physical  health  and 
cramped  activities,  had  been  one  of  singular  happiness  and  success. 
Ever  since  he  had  discovered  his  own  gifts  as  a  lecturer  to  w^ork- 
ing  men,  content,  cheerfulness,  nay,  a  passionate  interest  in  every 
hour,  had  been  quite  compatible  for  him  with  all  the  permanent 
limitations  of  his  lot.  The  study  of  economical  and  historical 
questions ;  the  expression  through  them  of  such  a  hunger  for  the 
building  of  a  "city  of  God"  among  men,  as  few  are  capable  of; 
the  evidence  not  to  be  ignored  even  by  his  modesty,  and  perpet- 
ually forthcoming  over  a  long  period  of  time,  that  he  had  the 
power  to  be  loved,  the  power  to  lead,  among  those  toilers  of  the 
world  on  whom  all  his  thoughts  centred  —  these  things  had  been 
his  joy,  and  had  led  him  easily  through  much  self-denial  to  the 
careful  husbanding  of  every  hour  of  strength  and  time  in  the 
service  of  his  ideal  end. 

And  now  he  had  come  upon  opposition  —  the  first  cooling  of 
friendships,  the  first  distrust  of  friends  that  he  had  ever  known. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  this  year  a  book  called  To-morrow  and  the 
Land  had  appeared  in  London,  written  by  a  young  London  ecoiio- 


360  MARCELLA  book  hi 

mist  of  great  ability,  and  dealing  with,  the  nationalisation  of  the 
land.  It  did  not  offer  much  discussion  of  the  general  question, 
but  it  took  up  the  question  as  it  affected  England  specially  and 
London  in  particular.  It  showed  —  or  tried  to  show  —  in  pictur- 
esque detail  what  might  be  the  consequences  for  English  rural  or 
municipal  life  of  throwing  all  land  into  a  common  or  national 
stock,  of  expropriating  the  landlords,  and  transferring  all  rent  to 
the  people,  to  the  effacemeut  of  taxation  and  the  indefinite  enrich- 
ment of  the  common  lot.  The  book  differed  from  Progress  and 
Poverty,  which  also  powei'fully  and  directly  affected  the  English 
working  class,  in  that  it  suggested  a  financial  scheme,  of  great 
apparent  simplicity  and  ingenuity,  for  the  compensation  of  the 
landlords ;  it  was  shorter,  and  more  easily  to  be  grasped  by  the 
average  working  man ;  and  it  was  written  in  a  singularly  crisp 
and  taking  style,  and  —  by  the  help  of  a  number  of  telling  illus- 
trations borrowed  directly  from  the  circumstances  of  the  larger 
English  towns,  especially  of  London  —  treated  with  abundant 
humour. 

The  thing  had  an  enormous  success  —  in  popular  phrase,  "caught 
on."  Soon  Hallin  found,  that  all  the  more  active  and  intelligent 
spirits  in  the  working-class  centres  where  he  was  in  vogue  as  a 
lecturer  were  touched  —  nay,  possessed  —  by  it.  The  crowd  of 
more  or  less  socialistic  newspapers  which  had  lately  sprung  up  in 
London  were  full  of  it ;  the  working  men's  clubs  rang  with  it.  It 
seemed  to  him  a  n\adness  —  an  infection;  and  it  spread  like  one. 
The  book  had  soon  reached  an  immense  sale,  and  was  in  every  one's 
hands. 

To  Hallin,  a  popular  teacher,  interested  above  all  in  the  mingled 
problems  of  ethics  and  economics,  such  an  incident  was  naturally 
of  extreme  importance.  But  he  was  himself  opposed  by  deepest 
conviction,  intellectual  and  moral,  to  the  book  and  its  conclusions. 
The  moi'e  its  success  grew,  the  more  eager  and  passionate  became 
his  own  desire  to  battle  with  it.  His  platform,  of  course,  was 
secured  to  him ;  his  openings  many.  Hundreds  and  thousands  of 
men  all  over  England  vrere  keen  to  know  what  he  had  to  say  about 
the  new  phenomenon. 

And  he  had  been  saying  his  say  —  throwing  into  it  all  his 
energies,  all  his  finest  work.  With  the  result  that  —  for  the  first 
time  in  eleven  years  —  he  felt  his  position  in  the  working-class 
movement  giving  beneath  his  feet,  and  his  influence  beginning  to 
drop  from  his  hand.  Coldness  in  place  of  enthusiasm ;  critical 
aloofness  in  place  of  affection  ;  readiness  to  forget  and  omit  him  in 
matters  where  he  had  always  hitherto  belonged  to  the  inner  circle 
and  the  trusted  few  —  these  bitter  ghosts,  with  their  hard,  unfa- 
miliar looks,  had  risen  of  late  in  his  world  of  idealist  effort  and 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  361 

joy,  and  had  bvouglit  with  them  darkness  and  chill.  lie  could  not 
give  way,  for  he  had  a  siiiguUxr  unity  of  soul  —  it  had  been  the 
source  of  his  power  —  and  every  econouiical  or  social  conviction 
was  in  some  way  bound  up  with  the  moral  and  religious  passion 
which  was  his  being  —  his  inmost  nature.  And  his  sensitive  state 
of  nerve  and  brain,  his  anchorite's  way  of  life,  did  not  allow  him 
the  distractions  of  other  men.  The  spread  of  these  and  other  similar 
ideas  seemed  to  him  a  question  of  the  future  of  England;  and  he 
had  already  begun  to  tlirow  himself  into  the  unequal  struggle  with 
a  martyr's  tenacity,  and  with  some  prescience  of  the  martyr's  fate. 

Even  Bennett !  As  he  sat  there  alone  in  the  dim  lamp-light,  his 
head  bent  over  his  knees,  his  hands  hanging  loosely  before  him, 
he  thought  bitterly  of  the  defection  of  that  old  friend  w^ho  had 
stood  by  him  through  so  many  lesser  contests.  It  was  impossible 
that  Bennett  should  think  the  schemes  of  that  book  feasible  !  Yet 
he  was  one  of  the  honestest  of  men,  and,  within  a  certain  range, 
one  of  the  most  clear-headed.  As  for  the  others,  they  had  been  all 
against  hiin.  Intellectually,  their  opinion  did  not  matter  to  him ; 
but  morally  it  was  so  strange  to  him  to  find  himself  on  the  side 
of  doubt  and  dissent,  while  all  his  friends  were  talking  language 
which  was  almost  the  language  of  a  new  faith  ! 

He  had  various  lecturing  engagements  ahead,  connected  with 
this  great  debate  which  was  now  surging  throughout  the  Labour 
world  of  London.  He  had  accepted  them  with  eagerness ;  in  these 
weary  night  hours  he  looked  forward  to  them  with  terror,  seeing 
before  him  perpetually  thousands  of  hostile  faces,  living  in  a  night- 
mare of  lost  sympathies  and  broken  friendships.  Oh,  for  sleep  — 
for  the  power  to  rest  —  to  escape  this  corrosion  of  an  ever  active 
thought,  which  settled  and  reconciled  nothing  ! 

"  The  tragedy  of  life  lies  in  the  conflict  between  the  creative  will  of 
man  and  the  hidden  ivisdom  of  the  world,  ivhich  seems  to  thwart  it." 
These  words,  written  by  one  whose  thought  had  penetrated  deep 
into  his  own,  rang  in  his  ears  as  he  sat  brooding  there.  Not  the 
hidden  fate,  or  the  hidden  evil,  but  the  hidden  ivisdom.  Could  one 
die  and  still  believe  it  ?     Yet  what  else  was  the  task  of  faith  ? 


CHAPTER   VI 

"  So  I  understand  you  wish  me  to  go  down  at  once  ? "  said 
Louis  Craven.     "  This  is  Friday  —  say  Monday?" 

Wharton  nodded.  He  and  Craven  were  sitting  in  Marcella's 
little  sitting-room.  Their  hostess  and  Edith  Craven  had  escaped 
through  the  door  in  the  back  kitchen  communicating  with  the 
Hurds'  tenement,  so  that  the  two  men  might  be  left  alone  awhile. 


362  MARCELLA  book  hi 

The  interview  between  them  had  gone  smoothly,  and  Louis  Craven 
had  accepted  immediate  employment  on  the  Labour  Clarion,  as 
the  paper's  correspondent  in  the  Midlands,  with  special  reference 
to  the  important  strike  just  pending.  Wharton,  whose  tendency 
in  matters  of  business  was  always  to  go  rather  further  than  he  had 
meant  to  go,  for  the  sake  generally  of  making  an  impression  on 
the  man  with  whom  he  was  dealing,  had  spoken  of  a  two  years' 
engagement,  and  had  offered  two  hundred  a  year.  So  far  as  that 
went.  Craven  was  abundantly  satisfied. 

"  And  I  understand  from  you,"  he  said,  "  that  the  paper  goes  in, 
for  the  strike,  that  you  will  fight  it  through  V  " 

He  fixed  his  penetrating  greenish  eyes  on  his  companion. 
Louis  Craven  was  now  a  tall  man  with  nari'ow  shoulders,  a  fine 
oval  head  and  face,  delicate  features,  and  a  nervous  look  of  short 
siglit,  producing  in  appearance  and  manner  a  general  impression 
of  thin  grace  and  of  a  courtesy  which  was  apt  to  pass  unaccountably 
into  sarcasm.  '\^'"harton  had  never  felt  himself  personally  at  ease 
with  him,  either  now,  or  in  the  old  daj'S  of  Venturist  debates. 

"  Certainh^,  we  shall  fight  it  through,"  Wharjon  replied,  with 
emphasis  —  "I  have  gone  through  the  secretary's  statement,  which 
I  now  hand  over  to  you,  and  I  never  saw  a  clearer  case.  The  poor 
WTetches  have  been  skinned  too  long;  it  is  high  time  the  public 
backed  them  up.  There  are  two  of  the  masters  in  the  House. 
Denny,  I  should  say,  belonged  quite  to  the  worst  type  of  employer 
going." 

He  spoke  with  light  venom,  buttoning  his  coat  as  he  spoke  with 
the  air  of  the  busy  public  man  who  must  not  linger  over  an 
appointment. 

"  Oh !  Denny !  "  said  Craven,  musing ;  "  yes,  Denny  is  a  hard 
man,  but  a  just  one  according  to  his  lights.  There  are  plenty 
worse  than  he." 

Wharton  was  disagreeably  reminded  of  the  Ventm'ist  habit  of 
never  accepting  anything  that  was  said  quite  as  it  stood  —  of  not, 
even  in  small  things,  "  swearing  to  the  words  "  of  anybody.  He 
was  conscious  of  the  qiiick  passing  feeling  that  his  judgment,  with 
regard  to  Denny,  ought  to  have  been  enough  for  Craven. 

"  One  thing  more,"  said  Craven  suddenly,  as  Wharton  looked  for 
his  stick — -"  you  see  there  is  talk  of  arbitration." 

'•  Oh  yes,  I  know !  "  said  Wharton,  impatiently ;  "  a  mere  blind. 
The  men  have  been  done  by  it  twice  before.  They  get  some  big- 
wig from  the  neighbourhood — not  in  the  trade,  indeed,  but  next 
door  to  it  —  and,  of  course,  the  award  goes  against  the  men." 

"  Then  the  paper  will  not  back  arbitration?" 

Craven  took  out  a  note-book. 

"  No  I  —  The  quarrel  itself  is  as  plain  as  a  pike-staff.     The  men 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  363 

are  asking  for  a  mere  pittance,  and  must  get  it  if  they  are  to  live. 
It's  like  all  these  home  industries,  abominably  ground  down.  We 
must  go  for  them !  I  mean  to  go  for  them  hot  and  strong.  Poor 
devils!  did  you  read  the  evidence  in  that  Blue-book  last  year? 
Arbitration?  no,  indeed  !  let  them  live  first !  " 

Craven  looked  up  absently. 

"  And  I  think,"  he  said,  '•  you  gave  me  Mr.  Thorpe's  address  ?  " 
Mr.  Thorpe  was  the  secretary. 

Again  Wharton  gulped  down  his  annoyance.  If  he  chose  to  be 
expansive,  it  was  not  for  Craven  to  take  no  notice. 

Craven,  however,  except  in  print,  where  he  could  be  as  vehement 
as  anybody  else,  never  spoke  but  in  the  driest  way  of  those  work- 
man's grievances,  which  in  reality  burnt  at  the  man's  heart.  A 
deep  disdain  for  what  had  always  seemed  to  him  the  cheapest 
form  of  self-advertisement,  held  him  back.  It  was  this  dryness, 
combined  with  an  amazing  disiuterestedness,  which  had  so  far 
stood  in  his  way. 

Wharton  repeated  the  address,  following  it  up  by  some  rather 
curt  directions  as  to  the  length  and  date  of  articles,  to  which 
Craven  gave  the  minutest  attention. 

"  May  we  come  in  ?  "  said  Marcella's  voice. 

"  By  all  means,"  said  Wharton,  with  a  complete  change  of  tone. 
"Business  is  up  and  I  am  off !  " 

He  took  up  his  hat  as  he  spoke. 

"  Not  at  all !  Tea  is  just  coming,  without  which  no  guest  de- 
parts," said  Marcella,  taking  as  she  spoke  a  little  tray  from  the 
red-haired  Daisy  who  followed  her,  and  motioning  to  the  child  to 
bring  the  tea-table. 

Wharton  looked  at  her  irresolute.  He  had  spent  half  an  hour 
with  her  tete-a-tete  before  Louis  Craven  arrived,  and  he  was  really 
due  at  the  House.  But  now  that  she  was  on  the  scene  again,  he 
did  not  find  it  so  easy  to  go  away.  How  astonishingly  beautiful 
she  was,  even  in  this  disguise !  She  wore  her  nurse's  dress ;  for 
her  second  daily  round  began  at  half-past  four,  and  her  cloak, 
bonnet,  and  bag  were  lying  ready  on  a  chair  beside  her.  The 
dress  was  plain  brown  holland,  with  collar  and  armlets  of  white 
linen;  but,  to  Wharton's  eye,  the  dark  Italian  head,  and  the  long 
slenderness  of  form  had  never  shown  more  finely.  He  hesitated 
and  stayed. 

"  All  well  ?  "  said  Marcella,  in  a  half  whisper,  as  she  passed  Louis 
Craven  on  her  way  to  get  some  cake. 

He  nodded  and  smiled,  and  she  w^ent  back  to  the  tea-table  with 
an  eye  all  gaiety,  pleased  with  herself  and  everybody  else. 

The  quarter  of  an  hour  that  followed  w'ent  agreeably  enough. 
AVharton  sat  among  the  little  group,  far  too  clever  to  patronise  a 


364  MARCELLA  book  hi 

cat,  let  alone  a  Venturist,  but  none  the  less  master  and  conscious 
master  of  the  occasion,  because  it  suited  him  to  take  the  aii'S  of 
equality.  Craven  said  little,  but  as  he  lounged  in  Marcella's  long 
cane  chair  with  his  arms  behind  his  head,  his  serene  and  hazy  air 
showed  iiim  contented ;  and  Marcella  talked  and  laughed  with  the 
animation  that  belongs  to  one  whose  plots  for  improving  the  uni- 
verse have  at  least  temporarily  succeeded.  Or  did  it  betray,  per- 
haps, a  woman's  secret  consciousness  of  some  pi'esence  beside  her, 
more  troubling  and  magnetic  to  her  than  others? 

"  Well  then,  Friday,"  said  Wharton  at  last,  when  his  time  was 
more  than  spent.  "  You  must  be  there  early,  for  there  will  be  a 
crush.  Miss  Craven  comes  too?  Excellent!  I  will  tell  the  door- 
keeper to  look  out  for  you.     Good-bye  !  —  good-bye  !  " 

And  with  a  hasty  shake  of  the  hand  to  the  Cravens,  and  one 
more  keen  glance,  first  at  Marcella  and  then  round  the  little  work- 
man's room  in  which  they  had  been  sitting,  he  went. 

He  had  hardly  departed  before  Anthony  Craven,  the  lame  elder 
brother,  who  must  have  passed  him  on  the  stairs,  appeared. 

"  Well  —  any  news?"  he  said,  as  Marcella  found  him  a  chair. 

"All  right!"  said  Louis,  whose  manner  had  entirely  changed 
since  Wharton  had  left  the  room.  "I  am  to  go  down  on  Monday 
to  report  the  Damesley  strike  that  is  to  be.  A  month's  trial,  and 
then  a  salary  —  two  hundred  a  year.     Oh  !  it'll  do." 

He  fidgeted  and  looked  away  from  his  brother,  as  though  trying 
to  hide  his  pleasure.  But  in  spite  of  him  it  transformed  every  line 
of  the  pinched  and  worn  face. 

"  And  you  and  Anna  will  walk  to  the  Registry  Office  next 
week  ? "  said  Anthony,  sourly,  as  he  took  his  tea. 

"  It  can't  be  next  week,"  said  Edith  Craven's  quiet  voice,  inter- 
posing. "  Anna's  got  to  work  out  her  shirt-making  time.  She 
only  left  the  tailoresses  and  began  this  new  business  ten  days  ago. 
And  she  was  to  have  a  month  at  each." 

Marcella's  lifted  eyebrows  asked  fo?  explanations.  She  had  not 
yet  seen  Louis's  betrothed,  but  she  was  understood  to  be  a  char- 
acter, and  a  better  authority  on  many  Labour  questions  than  he. 

Louis  explained  that  Anna  was  exploring  various  sweated  trades 
for  the  benefit  of  an  East  End  newspaper.  She  had  earned  four- 
teen shillings  her  last  week  at  tailoring,  but  the  feat  had  exhausted 
her  so  much  that  he  had  been  obliged  to  insist  on  two  or  three 
days'  res]3ite  before  moving  on  to  shirts.  Shirts  were  now  brisk, 
and  the  hours  appallingly  long  in  this  heat. 

"  It  was  on  shirts  they  made  acquaintance,"  said  Edith,  pensively. 
"  Louis  was  lodging  on  the  second  floor,  she  in  the  third  floor  back, 
and  they  used  to  pass  on  the  stairs.  One  day  she  heard  him  im- 
ploring the  little  slavey  to  put  some  buttons  on  his  shii-ts.     The 


CHAP.  VI  MAKCELLA  365 

slavey  tossed  her  head,  and  said  she'd  see  about  it.  When  he'd 
gone  out,  Anna  came  downstairs,  calmly  demanded  his  shirts,  and, 
having  the  slavey  under  her  thumb,  got  them,  walked  off  with 
them,  and  mended  them  all.  When  Louis  came  home  he  discov- 
ered a  neat  heap  reposing  on  his  table.  Of  course  he  wept  —  what- 
ever he  may  say.  But  next  morning  Miss  Anna  found  her  shoes 
outside  her  door,  blacked  as  they  had  never  been  blacked  before, 
with  a  note  inside  one  of  them.  Affecting  !  wasn't  it?  Thencefor- 
ward, as  long  as  they  remained  in  those  lodgings,  Anna  mended  and 
Louis  blacked.     Naturally,  Anthony  and  I  drew  our  conclusions." 

oMarcella  laughed. 

"  Y.OU  must  bring  her  to  see  me,"  she  said  to  Louis. 

"  I  will,"  said  Louis,  with  some  perplexity ;  "  if  I  can  get  hold 
of  her.  But  when  she  isn't  stitching  she's  writing,  or  trying  to 
set  up  Unions.  She  does  the  work  of  six.  She'll  earn  nearly  as 
much  as  I  do  when  we're  married.     Oh  !  we  shall  swim !  " 

Anthony  surveyed  his  radiant  aspect  —  so  unlike  the  gentle  or 
satirical  detachment  which  made  his  ordinary  manner — with  a 
dai'kening  eye,  as  though  annoyed  by  his  effusion. 

"  Two  hundred  a  year  ? "  he  said  slowly ;  "  about  what  Mr. 
Harry  Wharton  spends  on  his  clothes,  I  should  tliink.  The 
Labour  men  tell  me  he  is  superb  in  that  line.  And  for  the  same 
sum  that  he  spends  on  his  clothes,  he  is  able  to  buy  you,  Louis, 
body  and  soul,  and  you  seem  inclined  to  be  grateful." 

"  Never  mind,"  said  Louis,  recklessly.  "  He  didn't  buy  some 
one  else  —  and  I  am  grateful !  " 

"No;  by  Heaven,  you  shan't  be!"  said  Anthony,  with  a  fierce 
change  of  tone.  "Fow  the  dej^endent  of  that  charlatan  !  I  don't 
know  how  I'm  to  put  up  with  it.  You  know  very  well  what  T 
think  of  him,  and  of  your  becoming  dependent  on  him." 

Marcella  gave  an  angry  start.     Louis  protested. 

"Nonsense!"  said  Anthony,  doggedly ;  "you'll  have  to  bear  it 
from  me,  I  tell  yon  —  unless  you  muzzle  me  too  with  an  Anna." 

"  But  I  don't  see  why  /  should  bear  it,"  said  Marcella,  turning 
upon  him.  "  I  think  you  know  that  I  owe  Mr.  Wharton  a  debt. 
Please  remember  it !  " 

Anthony  looked  at  her  an  instant  in  silence.  A  question  crossed 
his  mind  concerning  her.     Then  he  made  her  a  little  clumsy  bow. 

"I  am  dumb,"  he  said.  "My  manners,  you  perceive,  are  what 
they  always  were." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  such  a  remark,"  cried  Marcella,  fum- 
ing. "  How  can  a  man  who  has  reached  the  position  he  has  in  so 
short  a  time  —  in  so  many  different  worlds — be  disposed  of  by 
calling  him  an  ugly. name?  It  is  more  than  unjust  —  it  is  absurd  ! 
Besides,  what  can  you  know  of  him?  " 


366  MARCELLA  book  hi 

"You  forget,"  said  Anthony,  as  he  cahnly  helped  himself  to 
more  bread  and  butter,  "  that  it  is  some  tliree  years  since  Master 
Harry  Wharton  joined  the  Venturists  and  began  to  be  heard  of 
at  all.  I  watched  his  beginnings,  and  if  I  didn't  know  him  well, 
my  friends  and  Louis's  did.  And  most  of  them  —  as  he  knows  ! 
—  have  pretty  strong  opinions  by  now  about  the  man." 

"  Come,  come,  Anthony ! "  said  Louis,  "  nobody  expects  a  man 
of  that  type  to  be  the  pure-eyed  patriot.  But  neither  you  nor  I 
can  deny  that  he  has  done  some  good  service.  Am  I  asked  to  take 
him  to  my  bosom  ?  Not  at  all !  He  proposes  a  job  to  me,  and 
offers  to  pay  me.  I  like  the  job,  and  mean  to  use  him  and  his 
paper,  both  to  earn  some  money  that  I  want,  and  do  a  bit  of  decent 
work." 

"  Yoii  —  use  Harry  Wharton !  "  said  the  ci-ipple,  with  a  sarcasm 
that  brought  the  colour  to  Louis's  thin  cheek  and  made  Marcella 
angrier  than  before.  She  saw  nothing  in  his  attack  on  Wharton, 
except  personal  prejudice  and  ill-will.  It  was  natural  enough,  that 
a  man  of  Anthony  Craven's  type  —  poor,  unsuccessful,  and  embit- 
tered— should  dislike  a  popular  victorious  personality. 

"Suppose  we  leave  Mr.  Wharton  alone?"  she  said  with  em- 
phasis, and  Anthony,  making  her  a  little  proud  gesture  of  submis- 
sion, threw  himself  back  in  his  chair,  and  was  silent. 

It  had  soon  become  evident  to  Marcella,  upon  the  renewal  of  her 
friendship  with  the  Cravens,  that  Anthony's  temper  towards  all 
men,  especially  towards  social  reformers  and  politicians,  had  devel- 
oped into  a  mere  impotent  bitterness.  While  Louis  had  renounced 
his  art,  and  devoted  himself  to  journalism,  unpaid  public  work 
and  starvation,  that  he  might  so  throw  himself  the  more  directly 
into  the  Socialist  battle,  Anthony  had  remained  an  artist,  mainly 
employed  as  before  in  decorative  design.  Yet  he  was  probably 
the  more  fierce  Venturist  and  auticapitalist  of  the  two.  Only 
what  with  Louis  was  an  intoxication  of  hope,  was  on  the  whole 
with  Anthony  a  counsel  of  despaii'.  He  loathed  wealth  more  pas- 
sionately than  ever ;  but  he  believed  less  in  the  W'orking  man,  less 
in  his  kind.  Rich  men  must  cease  to  exist ;  but  the  world  on 
any  terms  would  probably  remain  a  sorry  spot. 

In  the  few  talks  that  he  had  had  with  jNIarcella  since  she  left 
the  hospital,  she  had  allowed  him  to  gather  more  or  less  clearly — 
though  with  hardly  a  mention  of  Aldous  Raeburn's  name  —  what 
had  happened  to  her  at  Mellor.  Anthony  Craven  thought  out 
the  story  for  himself,  finding  it  a  fit  food  for  a  caustic  temper. 
Poor  devil  —  the  lover !  To  fall  a  victim  to  enthusiasms  so  raw, 
so  unprofitable  from  any  point  of  view,  was  hard.  And  as  to  this 
move  to  London,  he  thought  he  foresaw  the  certain  end  of  it.  At 
any  rate  he  believed  in  her  no  more  than  before.     But  her  beauty 


CHAP.  VI  ^        MARCELLA  867 

was  more  marked  than  ever,  and  would,  of  course,  be  the  domi- 
nant factor  in  her  fate.  He  was  thankful,  at  any  rate,  that  Louis 
in  this  two  years'  interval  had  finally  transferred  his  heart  else- 
where. 

After  watching  his  three  companions  for  a  while,  he  broke  in 
upon  their  chat  with  an  abrupt  — 

"  What  is  this  job,  Louis  ?  " 

"  I  told  you.  I  am  to  investigate,  report,  and  back  up  the 
Damesley  strike,  or  rather  the  strike  that  begins  at  Damesley  next 
week." 

"  No  chance !  "  said  Anthony  shortly,  "the  masters  are  too  strong. 
I  had  a  talk  with  Denny  yesterday." 

The  Denny  he  meant,  however,  was  not  Whai'ton's  colleague  in 
the  House,  but  his  son  —  a  young  man  who,  beginning  life  as  the 
heir  of  one  of  the  most  stiff-backed  and  autocratic  of  capitalists, 
had  developed  socialistic  opinions,  renounced  his  father's  allow- 
ance, and  was  now  a  member  of  the  "  intellectual  proletariat,"  as 
they  have  been  called,  the  free-lances  of  the  CoUectivist  movement. 
He  liad  lately  joined  the  Venturists.  Anthony  had  talien  a  fancy 
to  him.     Louis  as  yet  knew  little  or  nothing  of  him. 

"  Ah,  well !  "  he  said,  in  reply  to  his  brother,  "  I  don't  know.  I 
think  the  Clarion  can  do  something.  The  press  grows  more  and 
•  moi'e  powerful  in  these  things." 

And  he  repeated  some  of  the  statements  that  Wharton  had 
made  —  that  Wharton  always  did  make,  in  talking  of  the  Clarion 
—  as  to  its  growth  under  his  hands,  and  increasing  influence  in 
Labour  disputes. 

"  Bunkum ! "  interrupted  Anthony,  drily  ;  "  pui'e  bunkum !  My 
own  belief  is  that  the  Clarion  is  a  rotten  property,  and  that  he 
knows  it ! " 

At  this  both  Marcella  and  Louis  laughed  out.  Extravagance 
after  a  certain  point  becomes  amusing.  They  dropped  their  vexa- 
tion, and  Anthony  for  the  next  ten  minutes  had  to  submit  to  the 
part  of  the  fractious  person  whom  one  humours  but  does  not  argue 
with.  He  accepted  the  part,  saying  little,  his  eager,  feverish  eyes, 
full  of  hostility,  glancing  fi'om  one  to  the  other. 

However,  at  the  end,  ]Marcella  bade  him  a  perfectly  friendly  fare- 
well. It  was  always  in  her  mind  that  Anthony  Craven  was  lame 
and  solitary,  and  her  pity  no  less  than  her  respect  for  him  had  long 
since  yielded  him  the  right  to  be  rude. 

"  How  are  you  getting  on  ? "  he  said  to  her  abruptly  as  he 
dropped  her  hand. 

"  Oh,  very  well !  my  superintendent  leaves  me  almost  alone  now, 
which  is  a  compliment.  There  is  a  parish  d'octor  who  calls  me 
'  my  good  woman,'  and  a  sanitary  inspector  who  tells  me  to  go  to 


368  MARCELLA  book  hi 

him  whenever  I  want  advice.  Those  are  my  chief  grievances,  I 
think." 

"  And  you  are  as  much  in  love  with  the  poor  as  ever?  " 

She  stiifened  at  the  note  of  sarcasm,  and  a  retaliatory  impulse 
made  her  say : 

"  I  see  a  great  deal  more  happiness  than  I  expected." 

He  laughed. 

"  How  like  a  woman !  A  few  ill-housed  villagers  made  you  a 
democrat.  A  few  well-paid  London  artisans  will  carry  you  safely 
back  to  your  class.  Your  people  were  wise  to  let  you  take  this 
work." 

"Do  you  suppose  I  nurse  none  but  well-paid  artisans?"  she 
asked  him,  mocking.  "  And  I  didn't  say  '  money '  or  '  comfort,' 
did  I?  but  'happiness.'  As  for  my  'democracy,'  you  are  not  per- 
haps the  best  jud^e." 

She  stood  resting  both  hands  on  a  little  table  behind  her,  in  an 
attitude  touched  with  the  wild  freedom  which  best  became  her,  a 
gleam  of  storm  in  her  great  ej-es. 

"  Why  are  you  still  a  Venturist?"  he  asked  her  abruptly. 

"  Because  I  have  every  right  to  be !  I  joined  a  society,  pledged 
to  work  '  for  a  better  future.'  According  to  my  lights,  I  do  what 
poor  work  I  can  in  that  spirit." 

"Yoa  are  not  a  Socialist.  Half  the  things  you  say,  or  imply^ 
show  it.     And  we  are  Socialists." 

She  hesitated,  looking  at  him  steadily. 

"No!  —  so  far  as  Socialism  means  a  political  system  —  the  ti'am- 
pling  out  of  private  enterprise  and  competition,  and  all  the  rest  of 
it  —  I  find  myself  slipping  away  from  it  more  and  more.  No!  — 
as  I  go  about  among  these  wage-earners,  the  emphasis  —  do  what 
I  will  —  comes  to  lie  less  and  less  on  possession  —  moi'e  and  more 
on  character.  I  go  to  two  tenements  in  the  same  building.  One 
is  Hell  —  the  other  Heaven.  Why?  Both  belong  to  well-paid 
artisans  with  eqvial  opi^ortunities.  Both,  so  far  as  I  can  see, 
might  have  a  decent  and  pleasant  life  of  it.     But  one  is  a  man 

—  the  other,  with  all  his  belongings,  will  soon  be  a  vagabond. 
That  is  not  all,  I  know  —  oh!  don't  trouble  to  tell  me  so!  —  but 
it  is  more  than  I  thought.  No!  —  my  sympathies  in  this  district 
where  I  work  are  not  so  much  with  the  Socialists  that  I  know  here 

—  saving  your  presence  !  but  —  with  the  people,  for  instance,  that 
slave  at  Charity  Organisation !  and  get  all  the  abuse  from .  all 
sides." 

Anthony  laughed  scornfully. 

"  It  is  always  the  way  with  a  woman,"  he  said ;  "  she  mvariably 
prefers  the  tinkers  to  the  reformers." 

"And  as  to  your  Socialism,"  she  went  on,  unheeding,  the  thought 


CHAr.   VI  MARCELLA  369 

of  many  days  finding  defiant  expression  —  "  it  seems  to  me  like 
all  other  interesting  and  important  things — destined  to  help  some- 
thing else  !    Christianity  begins  with  the  poor  and  division  of  goods 

—  it  becomes  the  great  bulwark  of  jaroperty  and  the  feudal  state. 
The  Crusades  —  they  set  out  to  recover  the  tomb  of  the  Lord !  — 
what  they  did  was  to  increase  trade  and  knowledge.  And  so  with 
Socialism.  It  talks  of  a  new  order  —  what  it  will  do  is  to  help 
to  make  the  old  sound  !  " 

Anthony  clapped  her  ironically. 

"Excellent!  When  the  Liberty  and  Property  Defence  people 
have  got  hold  of  you  —  ask  me  to  come  and  hear!" 

JNIeanwhile,  Louis  stood  behind,  with  his  hands  on  his  sides,  a 
smile  in  his  blinking  eyes.  He  really  had  a  contempt  for  what  a 
handsome  half-taught  girl  of  twenty-three  might  think.  Anthony 
only  pretended  or  desired  to  have  it. 

Nevertheless,  Louis  said  good-bye  to  his  hostess  w'ith  real,  and, 
for  him,  rare  effusion.  Two  years  before,  for  the  space  of  some 
montlis,  he  had  been  in  love  with  her.  That  she  had  never  re- 
sponded with  anything  w^armer  than  liking  and  comradeship  he 
knew ;  and  his  Anna  now  possessed  him  wholly.  But  there  was 
a  deep  and  gentle  chivalry  at  the  bottom  of  all  his  stern  social 
faiths;  and  the  woman  towards  whom  he  had  once  felt  as  he  had 
towards  Marcella  Boyce  could  never  lose  the  glamour  lent  her  by 
that  moment  of  passionate  youth.    And  now,  so  kindly,  so  eagerly ! 

—  she  had  given  him  his  Anna. 

When  they  were  all  gone  Marcella  threw"  herself  into  her  chair 
a  moment  to  think.  Her  wrath  with  Anthony  was  soon  dismissed. 
But  Louis's  thanks  had  filled  her  with  delicious  pleasure.  Her 
cheek,  her  eye  had  a  child's  brightness.  The  old  passion  for  ruling 
and  influencing  was  all  alive  and  happy. 

"I  will  see  it  is  all  right,"  she  was  saying  to  herself.  "I  will 
look  after  them." 

"\Miat  she  meant  wa",  "I  will  see  that  Mr.  Wharton  looks  after 
them !  "  and  through  the  link  of  thought,  memory  flew  quickly 
back  to  that  tete-a-tete  with  him  which  had  j)receded  the  Cravens' 
arrival. 

How  changed  he  was,  yet  how  much  the  same !  He  had  not  sat 
beside  her  for  ten  minutes  before  each  was  once  more  vividly, 
specially  conscious  of  the  other.  She  felt  in  him  the  old  life  and 
daring,  the  old  imperious  claim  to  confidence,  to  intimacy  —  on 
the  other  hand  a  new  atmosphere,  a  new  gravity,  which  suggested 
growing  responsibilities,  the  difficulties  of  power,  a  great  position 

—  everything  fitted  to  touch  such  an  imagination  as  Marcella's, 
which,  whatever  its  faults,  was  noble,  both  in  quality  and  range. 
The  brow  beneath  the  bright  chestnut  curls  had  gained  lines  that 

2b 


370  MARCELLA  book  hi 

pleased  her  —  lines  that  a  woman  marks,  because  she  thinks  they 
mean  experience  and  mastery. 

Altogether,  to  have  met  him  again  was  pleasure;  to  think  of  him 
was  pleasure ;  to  look  forward  to  hearing  him  speak  in  Parlia- 
ment was  pleasure ;  so  too  was  his  new  coniiectiou  with  her  old 
friends.  And  a  pleasure  which  took  nothing  from  self-respect; 
wliich  was  open,  honourable,  eager.  As  for  that  ugly  folly  of  the 
past,  she  frowned  at  the  thought  of  it,  only  to  thrust  the  remem- 
brance passionately  away.  That  he  should  remember  or  allude  to 
it,  would  put  an  end  to  friendship.  Otherwise  friends  they  would 
and  should  be;  and  the  personal  interest  in  his  public  career 
should  lift  her  out  of  the  cramping  influences  that  flow  from  the 
perpetual  commerce  of  poverty  and  suffering.  AVhynot?  Such 
equal  friendships  between  men  and  women  grow  more  possible 
every  day.  While,  as  for  Hallin's  distrust,  and  Anthony  Craven's 
jealous  hostility,  why  should  a  third  person  be  bound  by  either  of 
them?  Could  any  one  suppose  that  such  a  temperament  as  Whar- 
ton's would  be  congenial  to  Hallin  or  to  Craven  —  or  —  to  yet 
another  person,  of  whom  she  did  not  want  to  think?  Besides, 
who  wished  to  make  a  hero  of  him?  It  was  the  very  complexity 
and  puzzle  of  the  character  that  made  its  force. 

So  with  a  reddened  cheek,  she  lost  herself  a  few  minutes  in  this 
pleasant  sense  of  a  new  wealth  in  life ;  and  was  only  roused  from 
the  dreamy  running  to  and  fro  of  thought  by  the  appearance  of 
Minta,  who  came  to  clear  away  the  tea. 

"Why,  it  is  close  on  the  half-hour!"  cried  Marcella,  springing 
up.     "  AVhere  are  my  things?  " 

She  looked  down  the  notes  of  her  cases,  satisfied  herself  that  her 
bag  contained  all  she  wanted,  and  then  hastily  tied  on  her  bonnet 
and  cloak. 

Suddenly  —  the  room  was  empty,  for  Minta  had  just  gone  away 
with  the  tea  —  by  a  kind  of  subtle  reaction,  the  face  in  that  pho- 
tograph on  Hallin's  table  flashed  into  her  mind  —  its  look  —  the 
grizzled  hair.  With  an  uncontrollable  pang  of  pain  she  dropped 
her  hands  from  the  fastenings  of  her  cloak,  and  wi'ung  them 
together  in  front  of  her  —  a  dumb  gesture  of  contrition  and  of 
grief. 

She!  —  she  talk  of  social  reform  and  " character,"  she  give  her 
opinion,  as  of  right,  on  points  of  speculation  and  of  ethics,  she, 
whose  main  achievement  so  far  had  been  to  make  a  good  man 
suffer!  Something  belittling  and  withering  swept  over  all  her 
estimate  of  herself,  all  her  pleasant  self-conceit.  Quietly,  with 
downcast  eyes,  she  went  her  way. 


CHAP.  VII  MARCELLA  371 


CHAPTER  VII 

Her  first  case  was  in  Brown's  Buildings  itself  —  a  woman  suffer- 
ing from  bronchitis  and  heart  complaint,  and  tormented  besides 
by  an  ulcerated  foot  which  Marcella  had  now  dressed  daily  for 
some  weeks.  She  lived  on  the  top  floor  of  one  of  the  easterly 
blocks,  with  two  daughters  and  a  son  of  eighteen. 

When  jNIarcella  entered  the  little  room  it  was  as  usual  spotlessly 
clean  and  smelt  of  flowers.  The  windows  were  open,  and  a  young 
woman  was  busy  shirt-ironing  on  a  table  in  the  centre  of  the  room. 
Both  she  and  her  mother  looked  up  with  smiles  as  IMarcella  en- 
tered. Then  they  introduced  her  with  some  cei'emony  to  a  "lady," 
who  was  sitting  beside  the  patient,  a  long-faced  melancholy  woman 
employed  at  the  moment  in  marking  linen  handkerchiefs,  which 
she  did  with  extraordinary  fineness  and  delicacy.  The  patient 
and  her  daughter  spoke  of  Mai-cella  to  their  friend  as  "  the  young- 
person,"  but  all  with  a  natural  courtesy  and  charm  that  could  not 
have  been  surpassed. 

JNIarcella  knelt  to  undo  the  wrappings  of  the  foot.  The  woman, 
a  pale  transparent  creature,  winced  painfully  as  the  dressing  was 
drawn  off ;  but  between  each  half-stifled  moan  of  pain  she  said 
something  eager  and  grateful  to  her  nurse.  "  I  never  knew  any 
one.  Nurse,  do  it  as  gentle  as  you  —  "  or  —  "I  do  take  it  kind  of 
you.  Nurse,  to  do  it  so  slow  —  oh  !  thei-ewere  a  young  person  before 
you  —  "  or  "hasn't  she  got  nice  hands,  Mrs.  Burton?  they  don't 
never  seem  to  jar  yer." 

"  Poor  foot !  but  I  think  it  is  looking  better,"  said  Marcella, 
getting  up  at  last  from  her  work,  when  all  was  clean  and  comfort- 
able and  she  had  replaced  the  foot  on  the  upturned  wooden  box 
that  supported  it — for  its  owner  was  not  in  bed,  but  sitting 
propped  up  in  an  old  armchair.  "And  how  is  your  cough,  Mrs. 
Jervis  ?  " 

"Oh!  it's  ver}'  bad,  nights,"  said  Mrs.  Jervis,  mildly  —  "dis- 
turbs Emily  dreadful.  But  I  always  pray  every  night,  when  she 
lifts  me  into  bed,  as  I  may  be  took'  befoi'e  the  morning,  an'  God 
ull  do  it  soOn." 

"  JMother !  "  cried  Emily,  pausing  in  her  ironing,  "you  know 
you  oughtn't  to  say  them  things." 

Mrs.  Jervis  looked  at  her  with  a  sly  cheerfulness.  Her  emaci- 
ated face  was  paler  than  usual  because  of  the  pain  of  the  dressing, 
but  from  the  frail  form  there  breathed  an  indomitable  air  of  life, 
a  gay  courage  indeed  which  had  already  struck  Marcella  with 
wonder. 

"Well,  yer  not  to  take  'em  to  heart,  Em'ly.     It  ull  be  when  it 


372  MARCELLA  book  hi 

will  be  —  for  the  Lord  likes  us  to  pray,  but  He'll  take  his  own 
time  —  an'  she's  got  troubles  enough  of  her  own,  Nurse.  D'yer 
see  as  she's  leff  off  her  ring  ?  " 

Marcella  looked  at  Emily's  left  hand,  while  the  gui  flushed  all 
over,  and  ironed  with  a  more  fiery  energy  than  before. 

"  I've  'eerd  such  things  of  'im.  Nurse,  this  last  two  days,"  she 
said  with  low  vehemence  —  "  as  I'm  never  goin'  to  wear  it  again. 
It  'ud  burn  me  !  " 

Emily  was  past  twenty.  Some  eighteen  months  before  this  date 
she  had  married  a  young  painter.  After  nearly  a  year  of  incred- 
ible misery  her  baby  was  born.  It  died,  and  she  very  nearly  died 
also,  owing  to  the  brutal  ill-treatment  of  her  husband.  As  soon 
as  she  could  get  on  her  feet  again,  she  tottered  home  to  her  wid- 
owed mother,  broken  for  the  time  in  mind  and  body,  and  filled 
with  loathing  of  her  tyrant.  He  made  no  effort  to  recover  her, 
and  her  family  set  to  work  to  mend  if  they  could  what  he  had 
done.  The  younger  sister  of  fourteen  was  earning  seven  shillings 
a  week  at  paper-bag  making ;  the  brother,  a  lad  of  eighteen,  had 
been  apprenticed  by  his  mother,  at  the  cost  of  heroic  efforts  some 
six  years  before,  to  the  leather-currying  trade,  in  a  highly  skilled 
branch  of  it,  and  was  now  taking  sixteen  shillings  a  week  with  the 
prospect  of  far  better  things  in  the  future.  He  at  once  put  aside 
from  his  earnings  enough  to  teach  Emily  "the  shirt-ironing," 
denying  himself  every  indulgence  till  her  training  was  over. 

Then  they  had  their  reward.  Emily's  colour  and  spirits  came 
back ;  her  earnings  made  all  the  difference  to  the  family  between 
penury  and  ease ;  while  she  and  her  little  sister  kept  the  three 
tiny  rooms  in  which  they  lived,  and  waited  on  their  invalid  mother, 
with  exquisite  cleanliness  and  care. 

Marcella  stood  by  the  ironing-table  a  moment  after  the  girl's 
si^eech. 

"  Poor  Emily ! "  she  said  softly,  laying  her  hand  on  the  ring- 
less  one  that  held  down  the  shirt  on  the  board. 

Emily  looked  up  at  her  in  silence.  But  the  girl's  eyes  glowed 
with  things  unsaid  and  inexpressible  —  the  "eternal  passion,  eter- 
nal pain,"  which  in  half  the  human  race  have  no  voice. 

"  He  was  a  very  rough  man  was  Em'ly's  husband,"  said  Mrs. 
Jervis,  in  her  delicate  thoughtful  voice  —  "a  very  uncultivated 
man." 

Marcella  turned  round  to  her,  startled  and  amused  by  the  adjec- 
tive. But  the  other  two  listeners  took  it  quite  quietly.  It  seemed 
to  them  apparently  to  express  what  had  to  be  said. 

"It's  a  sad  thing  is  want  of  edication,"  Mrs.  Jervis  went  on  in 
the  same  tone.  "Now  there's  that  lady  there"  —  with  a  little 
courtly  wave  of  her  hand  towards  Mrs.  Burton — "she  can't  read, 


CHAP.     VII 


MARCELLA  373 


yer  know,  Nurse,  and  I'm  that  sorry  for  her !  But  I've  been  read- 
ing to  her,  an'  Emily — just  while  my  cough's  quiet  —  one  of  my 
ole  tracks." 

She  held  up  a  little  paper-covered  tract  worn  with  use.  It  was 
called  "A  Pennortli  of  Grace,  or  a  Pound  of  Works?"  Marcella 
looked  at  it  in  respectful  silence  as  she  put  on  her  cloak.  Such 
things  were  not  in  her  line. 

"  I  do  love  a  track !  "  said  Mrs.  Jervis,  pensively.  "  That's  why 
I  don't  like  these  buildings  so  well  as  them  others,  Em'ly.  Here 
you  never  get  no  tracks ;  and  there,  what  with  one  person  and 
another,  there  was  a  new  one  most  weeks.  But"  —  her  voice 
dropped,  and  she  looked  timidly  first  at  her  friend,  and  then  at 
Marcella —  "  she  isn't  a  Christian,  Nurse.     Isn't  it  sad  ?  " 

Mrs.  Burton,  a  woman  of  a  rich  mahogany  complexion,  with  a 
black  "  front,"  and  a  mouth  which  turned  down  decisively  at  the 
corners,  looked^up  from  her  embroidery  with  severe  composure. 

"  No,  Nurse,  I'm  not  a  Christian,"  she  said  in  the  tone  of  one 
stating  a  disagreeable  fact  for  which  they  are  noways  responsible. 
"My  brother  is  —  and  my  sisters — real  good  Christian  people. 
One  of  my  sisters  married  a  gentleman  up  in  Wales.  She  'as  two 
servants,  an'  fam'ly  prayers  reg'lar.  But  I've  never  felt  no  '  call,' 
and  I  tell  'em  I  can't  purtend.  An'  Mrs.  Jervis  here,  she  don't 
seem  to  make  me  see  it  no  different." 

She  held  her  head  erect,  however,  as  though  the  unusually  high 
sense  of  probity  involved,  was,  after  all,  some  consolation.  Mrs. 
Jervia  looked  at  her  with  pathetic  eyes.  But  Emily  coloured 
hotly.     Emily  was  a  churchwoman. 

"Of  course  you're  a  Christian,  Mrs.  Burton,"  she  said  indig-^ 
nantly.     "  What  she  means.  Nurse,  is  she  isn't  a  '  member '  of  any 
chapel,  like  mother.     But  she's  been  baptised  and  confirmed,  for 
I  asked  her.     And  of  course  she's  a  Christian." 

"  Em'ly !  "  said  Mrs.  Jervis,  with  energy. 

Emily  looked  round  trembling.  The  delicate  invalid  was  sitting 
bolt  upright,  her  eyes  sparkling,  a  spot  of  red  on  either  hollow 
cheek.  The  glances  of  the  two  women  crossed ;  there  seemed  to 
be  a  mute  struggle  between  them.  Then  Emily  laid  down  her 
iron,  stepped  quickly  across  to  her  mother,  and  kneeling  beside 
her,  threw  her  arms  around  her. 

"  Have  it  your  own  way,  mother,"  she  said,  while  her  lip  quiv- 
ered ;  "  I  wasn't  a-goin'  to  cross  you." 

]\Irs.  Jervis  laid  her  waxen  cheek  against  her  daugliter's  tangle 
of  brown  hair  with  a  faint  smile,  while  her  breathing,  which  had 
grown  quick  and  panting,  gradually  subsided.  Emily  looked  up 
at  Marcella  with  a  terrified  self-reproach.  They  all  knew  that  any 
sudden  excitement  might  kill  out  the  struggling  flame  of  life. 


374  MARCELLA  book  hi 

"  You  ought  to  rest  a  little,  Mrs.  Jervis,"  said  Marcella,  with 
gentle  authority.  "  You  know  the  dressing  must  tire  you,  though 
you  won't  confess  it.  Let  me  put  you  comfortable.  There ;  aren't 
the  pillows  easier  so  ?     Now  rest  —  and  good-bye." 

But  Mrs.  Jervis  held  her,  while  Emily  slipped  away. 

"  I  shall  rest  soon,"  she  said  significantly.  "  An'  it  hurts  me 
when  Emily  talks  like  that.  It's  the  only  thing  that  ever  comes 
atween  us.  She  thinks  o'  forms  an'  ceremonies ;  an'  /  think  o' 
grace.'' 

Her  old  woman's  eyes,  so  clear  and  vivid  under  the  blanched 
brow,  searched  Marcella's  face  for  sympathy.  But  Marcella  stood, 
shy  and  wondering  in  the  presence  of  words  and  emotions  she 
understood  so  little.  So  narrow  a  life,  in  these  poor  rooms,  under 
these  crippling  conditions  of  disease  !  —  and  all  this  preoccupation 
with,  this  passion  over,  the  things "  not  of  the  flesh,  the  thwarted, 
cabined  flesh,  but  of  the  spirit — wonderful! 

On  coming  out  from  Brown's  Buildings,  she  turned  her  steps 
reluctantly  towards  a  street  some  distance  from  her  own  immedi- 
ate neighbourhood,  where  she  had  a  visit  to  pay  which  filled  her 
with  repulsion  and  an  unusual  sense  of  helplessness.  A  clergy- 
man who  often  availed  himself  of  the  help  of  the  St.  Martin's 
nurses  had  asked  the  superintendent  to  undertake  for  him  "a 
difficult  case."  Would  one  of  their  nurses  go  regularly  to  visit  a 
certain  house,  ostensibly  for  the  sake  of  a  little  boy  of  five  just 
come  back  from  the  hospital,  who  required  care  at  home  for  a 
while,  realhi  for  the  sake  of  his  young  mother,  who  had  suddenly 
developed  drinking  habits  and  was  on  the  road  to  ruin  ? 

Marcella  happened  to  be  in  the  office  when  the  letter  arrived. 
She  somewhat  unwillingly  accepted  the  task,  and  she  had  now 
paid  two  or  three  visits,  always  dressing  the  child's  sore  leg,  and 
endeavouring  to  make  acquaintance  with  the  mother.  But  in  this 
last  attempt  she  had  not  had  much  success.  Mrs.  Vincent  was 
young  and  pretty,  with  a  flighty,  restless  manner.  She  was  always 
perfectly  civil  to  Marcella,  and  grateful  to  her  apparently  for  the 
ease  she  gave  the  boy.  But  she  offered  no  confidences ;  the  rooms 
she  and  her  husband  occupied  showed  them  to  be  well-to-do ;  Mar- 
cella had  so  far  found  them  well-kept ;  and  though  the  evil  she 
was  sent  to  investigate  was  said  to  be  notorious,  she  had  as  yet 
discovered  nothing  of  it  for  herself.  It  seemed  to  her  that  she 
must  be  either  stupid,  or  that  there  must  be  something  about  her 
which  made  Mrs.  Vincent  more  secretive  with  her  than  with  others ; 
and  neither  alternative  pleased  her. 

To-day,  however,  as  she  stopped  at  the  Vincents'  door,  she 
noticed  that  the  doorstep,  which  was  as  a  rule  shining  white,  was 


CHAi-.   VII  MAKCELLA  375 

muddy  and  neglected.  Then  nobody  came  to  open,  though  she 
knocked  and  rang  repeatedly.  At  last  a  neighbour,  who  had  been 
watching  the  strange  nurse  through  her  own  parlour  window,  came 
out  to  the  street. 

"I  think,  miss,"  she  said,  with  an  air  of  polite  mystery,  "as 
you'd  better  walk  in.  Mrs.  Vincent  'asn't  been  enjyiu'  very  good 
'ealth  this  last  few  days." 

INIarcella  turned  the  handle,  found  it  yielded,  and  went  in.  It 
was  after  six  o'clock,  and  the  evening  sun  streamed  in  through 
a  door  at  the  back  of  the  house.  But  in  the  Vincents'  front 
parlour  the  blinds  were  all  pulled  down,  and  the  only  sound  to  be 
heard  was  the  fretful  wailing  of  a  child.  Marcella  timidly  opened 
the  sitting-room  door. 

The  room  at  first  seemed  to  her  dark.  Then  she  perceived  Mrs. 
Vincent  sitting  by  the  grate,  and  the  two  children  on  the  floor 
beside  her.  The  elder,  the  little  invalid,  was  simply  staring  at  his 
mother  in  a  wretched  silence ;  but  the  younger,  the  hahj  of  three, 
was  restlessly  throwing  himself  hither  and  thither,  now^  pulling  at 
the  woman's  skirts,  now  crying  lustily,  now  whining  in  a  hungry 
voice,  for  "  Mdma !  din-din  !     ^lama !  din-din  !  " 

Mrs.  Vincent  neither  moved  nor  spoke,  even  when  Marcella 
came  in.  She  sat  with  her  haiids  hanging  over  her  lap  in  a  deso- 
lation incapable  of  words.  She  was  dirty  and  unkempt ;  the  room 
was  covered  with  litter;  the  breakfast  things  were  still  on  the 
table;  and  the  children  were  evidently  starving. 

Marcella,  seized  with  pity,  and  divining  what  had  happened, 
tried  to  rouse  and  comfort  her.  But  she  got  no  answer.  Then 
she  asked  for  matches.  j\Irs.  Vincent  made  a  mechanical  effort 
to  find  them,  but  subsided  helpless  with  a  shake  of  the  liead.  At 
last  Marcella  found  tliem  herself,  lit  a  fire  of  some  sticks  she  dis- 
covered in  a  cupboard,  and  put  on  the  kettle.  Then  she  cut  a 
slice  of  bread  and  dripping  for  each  of  the  children  —  the  only 
eatables  she  could  find  —  and  after  she  liad  dressed  Bertie's  leg 
she  began  to  wash  up  the  tea  things  and  tidy  the  room,  not  know- 
ing very  well  what  to  be  at,  but  hoping  minute  by  minute  to  get 
Mrs.  Vincent  to  speak  to  her. 

In  the  midst  of  her  labours,  an  elderly  woman  cautiously  opened 
the  door  and  beckoned  to  her. 

Marcella  went  out  into  the  passage. 

"  I'm  her  mother,  miss  1  I  'eered  you  were  'ere,  an'  I  follered 
yer.  Oh !  such  a  business  as  we  'ad,  'er  'usband  an'  me,  a  gettin' 
of  'er  'ome  last  night.  There's  a  neighbour  come  to  me,  an'  she 
says  :  'Mrs.  Lucas,  there's  your  daughter  a  drinkin'  in  that  public 
'ouse,  an'  if  I  was  you  I'd  go  and  fetch  her  out ;  for  she's  got  a  lot 
o' money,  an'  she's  treatin'  everybody  all  round.'     An'  Charlie  — 


376  MARCELLA  book  hi 

that's  'er  'asband  —  ee  come  along  too,  an'  between  us  we  got  holt 
on  her.  An'  iver  sence  we  brought  her  'ome  last  night,  she  set  there 
in  that  cheer,  an'  niver  a  word  to  nobody!  Not  to  me  't  any  rate, 
nor  the  chillen.  I  believe  'er  'usband  an'  'er  'ad  words  this 
mornin'.  But  she  won't  tell  me  nothin'.  She  sits  there  —  just 
heart-broke"  —  the  woman  put  up  her  apron  to  her  eyes  and 
began  crying.  "  She  ain't  eatiu'  nothiuk  all  day,  an'  I  dursen't 
leave  the  'ouse  out  o'  me  sight  —  I  lives  close  by,  miss  —  for  fear  of 
'er  doing  'erself  a  mischief." 

"How  long  has  she  been  like  this?"  said  Marcella,  drawing  the 
door  cautiously  to  behind  her. 

"About  fourteen  month,"  said  the  woman,  hopelessly.  "An' 
none  of  us  knows  why.  She  was  such  a  neat,  pretty  girl  when 
she  married  'im  —  an'  ee  such  a  steady  fellow.  An'  I've  done  my 
best.  I've  talked  to  'er,  an'  I've  'id  'er  'at  an'  her  walking  things, 
an'  taken  'er  money  out  of  'er  pockets.  An',  bless  yer,  she's  been 
all  right  now  for  seven  weeks  —  till  last  night.  Oh,  deary,  deary, 
me  !  whatever  'uU  become  o'  them  —  'er,  an'  'im,  an'  the  children ! " 

The  tears  coursed  down  the  mother's  wrinkled  face. 

"Leave  her  to  me  a  little  longer,"  said  Marcella,  softly;  "but 
come  back  to  me  in  about  half  an  hour,  and  don't  let  her  be 
alone." 

The  woman  nodded,  and  went  away. 

Mrs.  Vincent  turned  quickly  round  as  Marcella  came  back  again, 
and  spoke  for  the  first  time : 

"  That  was  my  mother  you  were  talkin'  to  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Marcella,  quietly,  as  she  took  the  kettle  off  the  fire. 
"  Xow  I  do  want  you  to  have  a  cup  of  tea,  Mrs.  Vincent.  Will 
you,  if  I  make  it  ?  " 

The  poor  creature  did  not  speak,  but  she  followed  Marcella's 
movements  with  her  weary  eyes.  At  last  when  Marcella  knelt 
down  beside  her  holding  out  a  cup  of  tea  and  some  bread  and 
butter,  she  gave  a  sudden  cry.  Marcella  hastily  put  down  what 
she  carried,  lest  it  should  be  knocked  out  of  her  hand. 

"  He  struck  me  this  morning !  —  Charlie  did  —  the  first  time  in 
seven  years.     Look  here  !  " 

She  pulled  up  her  sleeve,  and  on  her  white,  delicate  arm  she 
showed  a  large  bruise.  As  she  pointed  to  it  her  eyes  fiUed  with 
miserable  tears;  her  lips  quivered;  anguish  breathed  in  every 
feature.  Yet  even  in  this  abasement  Marcella  was  struck  once 
more  with  her  slim  prettiness,  her  refined  air.  This  woman  drink- 
ing and  treating  in  a  low  public-house  at  midnight!  —  rescued 
thence  by  a  decent  husband! 

She  soothed  her  as  best  she  could,  but  when  she  had  succeeded 
in  making  the  wretched  soul  take  food,  and  so  in  putting  some 


CHAP,  vit  MARCELLA  377 

physical  life  into  her,  she  found  herself  the  recipient  of  an  out- 
burst of  agony  before  which  she  quailed.  The  woman  clung  to 
her,  moaning  about  her  husband,  about  the  demon  instinct  that 
had  got  hold  of  hei",  she  hardly  knew  how  —  by  means  it  seemed 
originally  of  a  few  weeks  of  low  health  and  small  self-indulgences 
—  and  she  felt  herself  powerless  to  fight ;  about  the  wreck  she 
had  brought  upon  her  home,  the  shame  upon  her  husband,  who 
was  the  respected,  well-paid  foreman  of  one  of  the  large  shops  of 
the  neighbourhood.     All  through  it  came  back  to  him. 

"We  had  words,  Nurse,  this  morning,  when  he  went  out  to  his 
woi'k.  He  said  he'd  nearly  died  of  shame  last  night;  that  he 
couldn't  bear  it  no  more ;  that  he'd  take  the  children  from  me. 
And  I  was  all  queer  in  the  head  still,  and  I  sauced  him  —  and 
then  —  he  looked  like  a  devil  —  and  he  took  me  by  the  arm  —  and 
threw  me  down  —  as  if  I'd  been  a  sack.  An'  he  never,  never  — 
touched  me  —  before  —  in  all  his  life.  An'  he's  never  come  in  all 
day.  An'  pei'haps  I  shan't  ever  see  him  again.  An'  last  time  — 
but  it  wasn't  so  bad  as  this  —  he  said  he'd  try  an'  love  me  again 
if  I'd  behave.  An'  he  did  try— and  I  tried  too.  But  now  it's  no 
good,  an'  perhaps  he'll  not  come  back.  Oh,  what  shall  I  do? 
what  shall  I  do  ! "  she  flung  her  arms  above  her  head.  "  Won't 
anybody  find  him  ?  won't  anybody  help  me  ?  " 

She  dropped  a  hand  upon  Marcella's  arm,  clutching  it,  her  wild 
eyes  seeking  her  companion's. 

But  at  the  same  moment,  with  the  very  extremity  of  her  own 
emotion,  a  cloud  of  impotence  fell  upon  Marcella.  She  suddenly 
felt  that  she  could  do  nothing  —  that  there  was  nothing  in  her 
adequate  to  such  an  appeal  —  nothing  strong  enough  to  lift  the 
weight  of  a  human  life  thus  flung  upon  her. 

She  was  struck  with  a  dryness,  a  numbness,  that  appalled  her. 
She  tried  still  to  soothe  and  comfort,  but  nothing  that  she  said 
went  home  —  took  hold.  Between  the  feeling  in  her  heart  which 
might  have  reached  and  touched  this  despair,  and  the  woman 
before  her,  there  seemed  to  be  a  barrier  she  could  not  break.  Or 
was  it  that  she  was  really  barren  and  poor  in  soul,  and  had  never 
realised  it  before  ?  A  strange  misery  rose  in  her  too,  as  she  still 
knelt,  tending  and  consoling,  but  with  no  efficacy  —  no  power. 

At  last  Mrs.  Vincent  sank  into  miserable  quiet  again.  The 
mother  came  in,  and  silently  began  to  put  the  children  to  bed. 
Marcella  pressed  the  wife's  cold  hand,  and  went  out  hanging  her 
head.  She  had  just  reached  the  door  when  it  opened,  and  a  man 
entered.  A  thrill  passed  through  her  at  the  sight  of  his  honest, 
haggard  face,  and  this  time  she  found  what  to  say. 

"  I  have  been  sitting  by  your  wife,  INIr.  Vincent.  She  is  very  ill 
and  miserable,  and  very  penitent.     You  will  be  kind  to  her  ?  " 


378  MARCELLA  book  hi 

The  husband  looked  at  her,  and  then  turned  away. 

"God  help  us!"  he  said;  and  Marcella  went  without  another 
w^ord,  and  with  that  same  wild,  unaccustomed  impulse  of  prayer 
filling  her  being  which  had  first  stirred  in  her  at  Mellor  at  the 
awful  moment  of  Hurd's  death. 

She  was  very  silent  and  distracted  at  tea,  and  afterwards — saj^- 
ing  that  slie  must  write  some  letters  and  reports  —  she  shut  herself 
up,  and  bade  good-night  to  INIinta  and  the  children. 

But  she  did  not  write  or  read.  She  hung  at  the  window  a  long 
time,  watching  the  stars  come  out,  as  the  summer  light  died  from 
the  sky,  and  even  the  walls  and  roofs  and  chimneys  of  this  inter- 
minable London  spread  out  before  her  took  a  certain  dim  beauty. 
And  then,  slipping  down  on  the  floor,  with  her  head  against  a 
chair  —  an  attitude  of  her  stormy  childhood  —  she  wept  with  an 
abandonment  and  a  passion  she  had  not  known  for  years.  She 
thought  of  Mrs.  Jervis — the  saint  —  so  near  to  death,  so  satisfied 
with  "  grace,"  so  steeped  in  the  heavenly  life ;  then  of  the  poor 
sinner  she  had  just  left  and  of  the  agony  she  had  no  power  to  stay. 
Both  experiences  liad  this  in  common  —  that  each  had  had  some 
part  in  plunging  her  deeper  into  this  darkness  of  self-contempt. 

What  had  come  to  her?  During  the  past  weeks  there  had  been 
something  wrestling  in  her  —  some  new  birth  — some  "  conviction 
of  sin,"  as  Mrs.  Jervis  would  have  said.  As  she  looked  back  over 
all  her  strenuous  youth  she  hated  it.  What  was  wrong  with  her  ? 
Her  own  word  to  Anthony  Craven  ret^^rned  upon  her,  mocked  her 

—  made  now  a  scourge  for  her  own  pride,  not  a  mere  measure  of 
blame  for  others.  Aldous  Raeburn,  her  father  and  mother,  her 
poor  —  one  and  all  rose  against  her  —  plucked  at  her  —  reproached 
her.  "Aye!  what,  indeed,  are  wealth  and  poverty?  "  cried  a  voice, 
which  was  the  voice  of  them  all;  "what  are  opinions  —  what  is  in- 
fluence, beauty,  cleverness?  —  what  is  anything  worth  but  character 

—  but  soul  f  " 

And  character  —  soul — can  only  be  got  by  self-surrender ;  and 
self-surrender  comes  not  of  knowledge  but  of  love. 

A  number  of  thoughts  and  phrases,  hitherto  of  little  meaning 
to  her,  floated  into  her  mind  —  sank  and  pressed  there.  That 
strange  word  "grace"  for  instance! 

A  year  ago  it  would  not  have  smitten  or  troubled  her.  After 
her  first  inevitable  reaction  against  the  evangelical  training  of  her 
school  years,  the  rebellious  cleverness  of  youth  had  easily  decided 
that  religion  was  played  out,  that  Socialism  and  Science  were 
enough  for  mankind. 

But  nobody  could  live  in  hospital  —  nobody  could  go  among  the 
poor  —  nobody  could  share  the  thoughts  and  hopes  of  people  like 


CHAP.  VIII  MARCELLA  379 

Edward  Halliu  and  his  sister,  without  understanding  that  it  is 
still  here  in  the  world — this  "grace"  that  "  sustaineth  " — how- 
ever variously  interpreted,  still  living  and  working,  as  it  worked 
of  old,  among  the  little  Galilean  towns,  in  Jerusalem,  in  Corinth. 
To  Edward  llallin  it  did  not  mean  the  same,  perhaps,  as  it  meant 
to  the  hard-worked  clergymen  she  knew,  or  to  Mrs.  Jervis.  But 
to  all  it  meant  the  motive  power  of  life  —  something  subduing, 
transforming,  delivering  —  something  that  to-night  she  envied 
with  a  passion  and  a  yearning  that  amazed  herself. 

How  many  things  she  craved,  as  an  eager  child  craves  them ! 
First  some  moral  change,  she  knew  not  what  —  then  Aldous  Rae- 
burn's  pardon  and  friendship  —  then  and  above  all,  the  power  to 
lose  herself  —  the  power  to  love. 

Dangerous  significant  moment  in  a  woman's  life  —  moment  at 
once  of  despair  and  of  illusion  I 


CHAPTER   VIII 

WnARTOjf  was  sitting  in  a  secluded  corner  of  the  library  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  He  had  a  number  of  loose  sheets  of  paper 
on  a  chair  beside  him,  and  others  in  his  hand  and  on  his  knee. 
It  was  Friday  afternoon  ;  questions  were  going  on  in  the  House ; 
and  he  was  funning  rapidly  for  the  last  time  through  the  notes  of 
his  speech,  pencilling  here  and  there,  and  every  now  and  then 
taking  up  a  volume  of  Hansard  that  lay  near  that  he  might  verify 
a  quotation. 

An  old  county  member,  with  a  rugged  face  and  eye-glasses,  who 
had  been  in  Parliament  for  a  generation,  came  to  the  same  corner 
to  look  up  a  speech.  He  glanced  curiously  at  Wharton,  with 
whom  he  had  a  familiar  House-of-Commons  acquaintance. 

"  Xervous,  eh  ?  "  he  said,  as  he  put  on  his  eye-glasses  to  inspect 
fii'st  Wharton,  then  the  dates  on  the  backs  of  the  Reports. 

Wharton  put  his  papei's  finally  together,  and  gave  a  long 
stretch. 

"  Not  particularly." 

"  Well,  it's  a  beastly  audience  !  "  said  the  other,  carrying  off  his 
book. 

Wharton,  lost  apparently  in  contemplation  of  the  ceiling,  fell 
into  a  dreamy  attitude.  But  his  eye  saw  notliing  of  the  ceiling, 
and  was  not  at  all  dreamy.  He  was  not  thinking  of  his  sjieech, 
nor  of  the  other  man's  remark.  He  was  thinking  of  Marcella 
Boyce. 

When  he  left  her  the  other  day  he  had  been  conscious,  only 
more  vividly  and  intensely,  more  possessively  as  it  were,  than  she, 


380  MARCELLA  book  hi 

of  the  same  general  impression  that  had  been  left  upon  her.  A 
new  opening  for  pleasure — their  meeting  presented  itself  to  him, 
too,  in  the  same  way.  What  had  he  been  about  all  this  time? 
Forget  ?  —  such  a  creature  ?  Why,  it  was  the  merest  wantonness ! 
As  if  such  women  —  with  such  a  brow,  such  vitality,  such  a  gait 
—  passed  in  every  street ! 

What  possessed  him  now  was  an  imperious  eagerness  to  push 
the  matter,  to  recover  the  old  intimacy  —  and  as  to  what  might 
come  out  of  it,  let  the  gods  decide  !  He  could  have  had  but  a  very 
raw  appreciation  of  her  at  Mellor.  It  seemed  to  hitn  that  she  had 
never  forced  him  to  tliink  of  her  then  in  absence,  as  he  had 
thought  of  her  since  the  last  meeting. 

As  for  the  nursing  business,  and  the  settlement  in  Brown's 
Buildings,  it  was,  of  coiirse,  mere  play-acting.  Xo  doubt  when 
she  emerged  she  would  be  all  the  more  of  a  personage  for  having 
done  it.  But  she  must  emerge  soon.  To  rule  and  shine  was  as 
much  her  metier  as  it  was  the  metier  of  a  bricklayer's  labourer 
to  carry  hods.  By  George  !  what  would  not  Lady  Selina  give 
for  beauty  of  such  degree  and  kind  as  that!  They  must  be 
brought  together.  He  already  foresaw  that  the  man  who  should 
launch  Marcella  Boyce  in  London  would  play  a  stroke  for  himself 
as  well  as  for  her.  And  she  must  be  launched  in  London.  Let 
other  i^eople  nurse,  and  pitch  their  tents  in  little  workmen's  flats, 
and  lice  democracy  instead  of  preaching  it.  Her  fate  was  fixed 
foi'^her  by  her  physique.     II  ne  faut  pas  sortir  de  son  caractere. 

The  sight  of  Bennett  appi'oaching  distracted  him. 

Bennett's  good  face  showed  obvious  vexation. 

"He  sticks  to  it,"  he  said,  as  "Wharton  jumped  up  to  meet  him. 
"  Talks  of  his  conscience  —  and  a  lot  of  windy  stuff.  He  seems  to 
have  arranged  it  with  the  Whips.  I  dare  say  he  won't  do  much 
harm." 

"  Except  to  himself,"  said  AVharton,  with  dry  bitterness.  "  Good- 
ness !  let's  leave  him  alone  !  " 

He  and  Bennett  lingered  a  few  minutes  discussing  points  of 
tactics.  Wilkins  had,  of  course,  once  more  declared  himself  the 
enfant  terrible  of  a  party  which,  though  still  undefined,  was  draw- 
ing nearer  day  by  day  to  organised  existence  and  separate  lead- 
ership. The  effect  of  to-night's  debate  might  be  of  far-reaching 
importance.  Wharton's  Resolution,  pledging  the  House  to  a 
Legal  Eight  Hours'  Day  for  all  trades,  came  at  the  end  of  a  long 
and  varied  agitation,  was  at  the  moment  in  clear  practical  relation 
to  labour  movements  all  over  the  country,  and  had  in  fact  gained 
greatly  in  significance  and  interest  since  it  was  first  heard  of  in 
public,  owing  to  events  of  current  history.  Workable  proposals  — 
a  moderate  tone  —  and  the  appearance,  at  any  rate,  of  harmony 


CHAi'.  Mil  MARCELLA  381 

and  a  united  front  ainong  the  representatives  of  labour  —  if  so 
much  at  least  could  be  attained  to-night,  both  Wharton  and  Ben- 
nett believed  that  not  only  the  caus^  itself,  but  the  importance  of 
the  Labour  party  in  the  House  would  be  found  to  have  gained 
enormously. 

"  T  hope  I  shall  get  my  turn  before  dinner,"  said  Bennett,  as  he 
was  going  ;  "  I  want  badly  to  get  off  for  an  hour  or  so.  The  divis- 
ion won't  be  till  half-past  ten  at  earliest." 

AVhartou  stood  for  a  moment  in  a  brown  study,  with  his  hands  in 
his  pockets,  after  Bennett  left  him.  It  was  by  no  means  wholly 
clear  to  him  what  line  Bennett  would  take  —  with  regard  to  one  or 
two  points.  After  a  long  acquaintance  with  the  little  man,  Whar- 
ton was  not  always,  nor  indeed  generally,  at  his  ease  with  hiui. 
Bennett  had  curious  reserves.  As  to  his  hour  off,  W^harton  felt 
tolerably  certain  that  he  meant  to  go  and  hear  a  famous  Revivalist 
preacher,  hold  forth  at  a  public  hall  not  far  from  the  House.  The 
streets  were  full  of  placards. 

Well!  —  to  every  man  his  own  excitements!  What  time?  He 
looked  first  at  his  watch,  then  at  the  marked  question  paper  Ben- 
nett had  left  behind  him.  The  next  minute  he  was  hurrying 
along  passages  and  stairs,  with  his  springing,  boyish  step,  to  the 
Ladies'  Gallery. 

The  magnificent  doorkeeper  saluted  him  with  particular  defer- 
ence.    Wharton  was  in  general  a  favourite  with  officials. 

"  The  two  ladies  are  come,  sir.  You'll  find  them  in  the  fi-ont  — 
oh  !  not  very  full  yet,  sir,  —  will  be  directly." 

Wharton  drew  aside  the  curtain  of  the  Gallery,  and  looked  in. 
Yes!  —  there  was  the  dark  head  bent  forward,  pressed  indeed 
against  the  grating  which  closes  the  front  of  the  den  into  which 
the  House  of  Commons  puts  its  ladies  —  as  though  its  owner  were 
already  absorbed  in  what  was  passing  before  her. 

She  looked  up  with  an  eager  start,  as  she  heard  his  voice  in  her 
ear. 

"Oh!  now,  come  and  tell  us  everything  —  and  who  everybody 
is.  Why  don't  we  see  the  Speaker?  —  and  which  is  the  Govern- 
ment side?  —  oh,  yes,  I  see.     And  who's  this  speaking  now?" 

"  Why,  I  thought  you  knew  everything,"  said  Wharton  as,  with 
a  greeting  to  ]\Iiss  Craven,  he  slipped  in  beside  them  and  took  a 
still  vacant  chair  for  an  instant.  "  How"  shall  I  instruct  a  Speaker's 
great-niece  ?  " 

"  Why,  of  course  I  feel  as  if  the  place  belonged  to  me ! "  said 
JNIarcella,  impatiently  ;  "  but  that  somehow  doesn't  seem  to  help  me 
to  people's  names.  Where's  Mr.  Gladstone?  Oh,  I  see.  Look, 
look,  Edith  !  — he's  just  come  in  !  —  oh,  don't  be  so  superior,  though 
you  have  been  here  before — you  couldn't  tell  uie  lieaps  of  people  i  " 


382  MARCELLA  book  in 

Her  voice  had  a  note  of  joyous  excitement  like  a  child's. 

"That's  because  I'm  short-sighted,"  said  Edith  Craven,  calmly; 
"  but  it's  no  reason  why  you  should  show  me  ]\Ir.  Gladstone." 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  my  dear  !  —  do  be  quiet !  Xow,  Mr.  Wharton, 
where  are  the  Irishmen?  Oh!  I  wish  we  could  have  an  Irish 
row!  And  where  do  you  sit? — I  see  —  and  there's  Mr.  Bennett — 
and  that  black-faced  man,  Mr.  Wilkins,  I  met  at  the  Hallins'  —  you 
don't  like  him,  do  you?"  she  said,  drawing  back  and  looking  at 
him  sharply. 

"Who?  Wilkins?  Perhaps  you'd  better  ask  me  that  question 
later  on  !  "  said  Wharton,  with  a  twist  of  the  lip ;  "  he's  going  to 
do  his  best  to  make  a  fool  of  himself  and  us  to-night  —  we  shall 
see  !  It's  kind  of  you  to  wish  us  an  Irish  row !  —  considering  that 
if  I  miss  my  chance  to-night  I  shall  never  get  another !  " 

"  Then  for  heaven's  sake  don't  let's  wish  it ! "  she  said  decidedly. 
"Oh,  that's  the  Irish  Secretary  answering  now,  is  it?"  —  a  pause 

—  "Dear  me,  how  civil  everybody  is.  I  don't  think  this  is  a  good 
place  for  a  Democrat,  ^Ir.  Wharton  —  I  find  myself  terribly  in 
love  with  the  Government.     But  who's  that?" 

She  craned  her  neck.  Wharton  was  silent.  The  next  instant 
she  drew  hurriedly  back. 

"  I  didn't  see,"  she  murmured  ;  "  it's  so  confusing." 

A  tall  man  had  risen  from  the  end  of  the  Government  bench, 
and  was  giving  an  answer  connected  mth  the  Home  Secretary's 
department.  For  the  first  time  since  their  parting  in  the  Mellor 
drawing-room  Marcella  saw  Aldous  Raeburn. 

She  fell  very  silent,  and  leant  back  in  her  chair.  Yet  Wliarton's 
quick  glance  perceived  that  she  both  looked  and  listened  intently, 
so  long  as  the  somewhat  high-pitched  voice  was  speaking. 

"  He  does  those  things  very  well,"  he  said  carelessly,  judging  it 
best  to  take  the  bull  by  the  horns.  "Xever  a  word  too  much — 
they  don't  get  any  change  out  of  him.  Do  you  see  that  old  fellow 
in  the  white  beard  under  the  gallery?  He  is  one  of  the  chartered 
bores.  When  he  gets  up  to-night  the  House  will  dine.  I  shall 
come  up  and  look  for  you,  and  hand  you  over  to  a  friend  if  I  may 

—  a  Staff ordsliii'e  member,  who  has  his  wife  here  —  ]\Irs.  Lane.  I 
have  engaged  a  table,  and  I  can  start  with  you.  Unfortunately 
I  mustn't  be  long  out  of  the  House,  as  it's  my  motion ;  but 
they  will  look  after  you." 

The  girls  glanced  a  little  shyly  at  each  other.  Nothing  had" 
been  said  about  dining;  but  Wharton  took  it  for  granted;  and 
they  yielded.  It  was  Marcella's  "  day  off,"  and  she  was  a  free 
woman. 

"Good-bye,  then,"  he  said,  getting  up.  "I  shall  be  on  in  about 
twenty  minutes.     ^Vish  me  well  through !  " 


CHAP.  VIII  MARCELLA  383 

JNIarcella  looked  round  and  smiled.  But  her  vivacity  had  been 
quenched  for  the  moment ;  and  "Wharton  departed  not  quite,  so 
well  heartened  for  the  fray  as  he  could  have  wished  to  be.  It 
was  hard  luck  that  the  Raeburn  ghost  shoiild  walk  this  particular 
evening. 

Marcella  bent  forward  again  when  he  had  gone,  and  remained  for 
long  silent,  looking  down  into  the  rapidly  filling  House.  Aldous 
Raeburn  was  lying  back  on  the  Treasury  bench,  his  face  upturned. 
She  knew  very  well  that  it  was  impossible  he  should  see  her ;  yet 
every  now  and  then  she  shrank  a  little  away  as  though  he  must. 
The  face  looked  to  her  older  and  singularly  blanched;  but  she 
supposed  that  must  be  the  effect  of  the  light;  for  she  noticed  the 
same  pallor  in  many  others. 

^^  All  that  my  life  can  do  to  pour  good  measure — pressed  down  — 
running  over — into  yours,  I  vowed  you  then  !  " 

The  words  stole  into  her  memory,  throbbing  there  like  points  of 
pain.  Was  it  indeed  this  man  under  her  ej'es — so  listless,  so 
unconscious — Avho  had  said  them  to  her  with  a  passion  of  devotion 
it  shamed  her  to  think  of? 

And  now  —  never  so  much  as  an  ordinary  word  of  friendship 
between  them  again?  "On  the  broad  seas  of  life  enisled"  — 
separate,  estranged,  for  ever?  It  was  like  the  touch  of  death  — 
the  experience  brought  with  it  such  a  chill  —  such  a  sense  of 
irreparable  fact,  of  limitations  never  to  be  broken  through. 

Then  she  braced  herself.  The  "  things  that  are  behind  "  must 
be  left.  To  have  married  him  after  all  would  have  been  the 
greatest  wrong.  Nor,  in  one  sense,  was  what  she  had  done  irrep- 
arable. She  chose  to  believe  Frank  Leven,  rather  than  Edward 
Hallin.  Of  course  he  must  and  should  marry !  It  was  absurd  to 
suppose  that  he  should  not.  No  one  had  a  stronger  sense  of 
family  than  he.  And  as  for  tlie  girl — the  little  dancing,  flirting 
girl! — why  the  thing  happened  everyday.  His  wife  should  not 
be  too  strenuous,  taken  up  with  problems  and  questions  of  her 
own.  She  should  cheer,  amuse,  distract  him.  Marcella  endeav- 
oured to  think  of  it  all  with  the  dry  common-sense  her  mother 
would  have  applied  to  it.  One  thing  at  least  was  clear  to  her  — 
the  curious  recognition  that  never  before  had  she  considered  Aldous 
Raeburn,  in  and  for  himself,  as  an  independent  human  being. 

"He  was  just  a  piece  of  furniture  in  my  play  last  year,"  she 
said  to  herself  with  a  pang  of  frank  remorse.  "  He  was  well  quit 
of  me !  " 

But  she  was  beginning  to  recover  her  spirits,  and  when  at  last 
Raeburn,  after  a  few  words  with  a  minister  who  had  just  arrived, 
disappeared  suddenly  behind  the  Speaker's  chair,  the  spectacle 
below  her  seized  her  with  the  same  fascination  as  before. 


38-4  MARCELLA  book  hi 

The  House  was  filling  rapidly.  Questions  were  nearly  over,  and 
the  speech  of  the  evening,  on  which  considerable  public  expecta- 
tion both  inside  and  outside  Parliament  had  been  for  some  time 
concentrated,  was  fast  approaching.  Peers  were  straggling  into 
the  gallery ;  the  reporters  were  changing  just  below  her :  and 
some  "  crack  hands "  among  them,  who  had  been  lounging  till 
now,  were  beginning  to  pay  attention  and  put  their  paper  in 
order.  The  Irish  benches,  the  Opposition,  the  Government  —  all 
were  full,  and  there  was  a  large  group  of  members  round  the  door. 

"  There  he  is ! "  cried  Marcella,  involuntarily,  with  a  pulse  of 
excitement,  as  Wharton's  light  young  figure  made  its  way  through 
the  crowd.  He  sat  down  on  a  corner  seat  below  the  gangway  and 
put  on  his  hat. 

In  five  minutes  more  he  was  on  his  feet,  speaking  to  an  attentive 
and  crowded  House  in  a  voice  —  clear,  a  little  hard,  but  capable  of 
the  most  accomplished  and  subtle  variety  —  which  for  the  first 
moment  sent  a  shudder  of  memory  through  Marcella. 

Then  she  found  herself  listening  with  as  much  trepidation  and 
anxiety  as  though  some  personal  interest  and  reputation  depended 
for  her,  too,  on  the  success  of  the  speech.  Her  mind  was  first 
invaded  by  a  strong,  an  irritable  sense  of  the  difficulty  of  the  audi- 
ence. How  was  it  possible  for  any  one,  unless  he  had  been  trained 
to  it  for  years,  to  make  any  effect  upon  such  a  crowd!  —  so  irre- 
sponsive, individualist,  unfused  —  so  lacking,  as  it  seemed  to  the 
raw  spectator,  in  the  qualities  and  excitements  that  properly  belong- 
to  multitude !  Half  the  men  down  below,  under  their  hats,  seemed 
to  her  asleep ;  the  rest  indifferent.  And  were  those  languid,  indis- 
tinguishable mvirmurs  what  the  newspapers  call  "  cheers  "  ? 

But  the  voice  below  flowed  on ;  point  after  point  came  briskly 
out;  the  atmosphere  warmed;  and  presently  this  first  impression 
passed  into  one  wholly  different  —  nay,  at  the  opposite  pole. 
Gradually  the  girl's  ardent  sense —  informed,  perhaps,  more  richly 
than  most  women's  with  the  memories  of  history  and  literature, 
for  in  her  impatient  way  she  had  been  at  all  times  a  quick,  omniv- 
orous reader  —  awoke  to  the  peculiar  conditions,  the  special  thrill, 
attaching  to  the  place  and  its  performers.  The  philosopher  derides 
it ;  the  man  of  letters  out  of  the  House  talks  of  it  with  a  smile  as 
a  "  Ship  of  Fools  "  ;  both,  when  occasion  offers,  passionately  desii-e 
a  seat  in  it ;  each  would  give  his  right  hand  to  succeed  in  it. 

Why?  Because  here  after  all  is  power  —  here  is  the  central 
machine.  Here  are  the  men  who,  both  by  their  qualities  and 
their  defects,  are  to  have  for  their  span  of  life  the  leading — or 
the  wrecking?  —  of  this  great  fate-bearing  force,  this  "weary 
Titan  "  we  call  our  country.  Here  things  are  not  only  debated, 
but  done  —  lamely  or  badly,  perhaps,  but  still  dotie  — which  will 


CHAP.  VIII  MARCELLA  '385 

affect  our  children's  chiklreu ;  which  link  us  to  the  Past ;  which 
carry  us  on  safely  or  dangerously  to  a  Future  only  the  gods  know. 
And  in  this  passage,  this  chequered,  doubtful  passage  from  think- 
ing to  doing,  an  infinite  savour  and  passion  of  life  is  somehow 
disengaged.  It  penetrates  through  the  boredom,  through  all  the 
failure,  public  and  personal ;  it  enwraps  the  spectacle  and  the 
actors;  it  carries  and  supports  patriot  and  adventurer  alike. 

Ideas,  perceptions  of  this  kind  —  the  first  chill  over  —  stole  upon 
and  conquered  Marcella.  Presently  it  was  as  though  sh«  had 
passed  into  Wharton's  place,  was  seeing  with  his  eyes,  feeling  with 
his  nerves.  It  would  be  a  success  this  speech  —  it  was  a  success  ! 
The  House  was  gained,  was  attentive.  A  case  long  familiar  to  it 
in  portions  and  fragments,  which  had  been  spoilt  by  violence  and 
discredited  by  ignorance,  was  being  presented  to  it  with  all  the 
resources  of  a  gi-eat  talent  — with  biilliancy,  moderation,  practical 
detail  —  moderation  above  all !  From  the  slight  historical  sketch, 
with  which  the  speech  opened,  of  the  English  "  working  day,"  the 
causes  and  the  results  of  the  Factory  Acts  —  through  the  general 
description  of  the  present  situation,  of  the  workman's  present 
hours,  opportunities  and  demands,  the  growth  of  the  desire  for 
State  control,  the  machinery  by  which  it  was  to  be  enforced,  and 
the  effects  it  might  be  expected  to  have  on  the  workman  himself, 
CD  the  great  army  of  the  "  unemjtloyed,"  on  wages,  on  production, 
and  on  the  economic  futiu-e  of  England  —  the  speaker  carried  his 
thread  of  luminous  speech,  without  ever  losing  his  audience  for  an 
instant.  At  every  point  he  addressed  himself  to  the  smoothing  of 
difficulties,  to  the  propitiation  of  fears ;  and  when,  after  the  long 
and  masterly  handling  of  detail,  he  came  to  his  peroration,  to  the 
bantering  of  capitalist  terrors,  to  the  vindication  of  the  workman's 
claim  to  fix  the  conditions  of  his  labour,  and  to  the  vision  lightly 
and  simply  touched  of  the  regenerate  working  home  of  the  future, 
inhabited  by  free  men,  dedicated  to  something  beyond  the  first 
brutal  necessities  of  the  bodily  life,  possessed  indeed  of  its  pro^ser 
share  of  the  human  inheritance  of  leisure,  knowledge,  and  delight 
—  the  ci'owded  benches  before  and  behind  him  grudged  him  none 
of  it.  The  House  of  Commons  is  not  tolerant  of  "  flights,"  except 
from  its  chartered  masters.  But  this  young  man  had  earned  his 
flight ;  and  they  heard  him  patiently.  For  the  rest,  the  Govern- 
ment had  been  most  attractively  wooed ;  and  the  Liberal  party  in 
the  midst  of  much  plain  speaking  had  been  treated  on  the  whole 
with  a  deference  and  a  forbearance  that  had  long  been  conspicu- 
ously lacking  in  the  utterances  of  the  Labour  men. 

"  '  The  mildest  mannered  man '  et  cetera  !  "  said  a  smiling  mem- 
ber of  the  late  Government  to  a  companion  on  the  front  Oppo- 
sition bench,  as  Wharton  sat  down  amid  the-  general  stir  and 
2  0 


386  MARCELLA  book  hi 

mo-vement  which  betoken  the  break-up  of  a  crowded  House,  and 
the  end  of  a  successful  speech  which  people  are  eager  to  discuss  in 
the  lobbies.  "A  fine  performance,  ehV  Great  advance  on  any- 
thing last  year." 

"  Bears  about  as  much  relation  to  facts  as  I  do  to  the  angels ! " 
gi'owled  the  man  addressed. 

"  What !  as  bad  as  that  ?  "  said  the  other,  laughing.  "  Look ! 
they  have  put  up  old  Denny.  I  think  I  shall  stay  and  hear  him." 
And  he  laid  down  his  hat  again  which  he  had  taken  up. 

Meanwhile  Marcella  in  the  Ladies'  Gallery  had  thrown  herself 
back  in  her  chair  with  a  long  breath. 

"  How  can  one  listen  to  anything  else ! "  she  said ;  and  for  a 
long  time  she  sat  staring  at  the  House  without  hearing  a  word  of 
what  the  very  competent,  caustic,  and  well-informed  manufacturer 
on  the  Government  side  was  saying.  Every  dramatic  and  festhetic 
instinct  she  possessed — and  she  was  full  of  them  —  had  been 
stirred  and  satisfied  by  the  speech  and  the  speaker. 

But  more  than  that.  He  had  spoken  for  the  toiler  and  the  poor  ; 
his  peroration  above  all  had  contained  tones  and  accents  which 
were  in  fact  the  products  of  something  perfectly  sincere  in  the 
speaker's  motley  personality ;  and  this  girl,  who  in  her  wild  way 
had  given  herself  to  the  poor,  had  followed  him  with  all  her  pas- 
sionate heart.  Yet,  at  the  same  time,  with  an  amount  of  intellec- 
tual dissent  every  now  and  then  as  to.  measures  and  methods,  a 
scepticism  of  detail  which  astonished  herself !  A  year  before  she 
had  been  as  a  babe  beside  him,  whether  in  matters  of  pure  mind 
or  of  worldly  experience.  Now  she  was  for  the  first  time  conscious 
of  a  curious  growth  —  independence. 

But  the  intellectual  revolt,  such  as  it  was,  was  lost  again,  as  soon 
as  it  arose,  in  the  genea-al  impression  which  the  speech  had  left 
upon  her — in  this  warm  quickening  of  the  pulses,  this  romantic 
interest  in  the  figure,  the  scene,  the  young  emerging  personality. 

Edith  Craven  looked  at  her  with  wondering  amusement.  She 
and  her  brothers  were  typical  Venturists  —  a  little  cynical,  there- 
fore, towards  all  the  world,  friend  or  foe.  A  Venturist  is  a  Social- 
ist minus  cant,  and  a  cause  which  cannot  exist  at  all  without  a 
passion  of  sentiment  lays  it  down  —  through  him  —  as  a  first  law, 
that  sentiment  in  public  is  the  abominable  thing.  Edith  Craven 
thought  that  after  all  Marcella  was  little  less  raw  and  simple  now 
than  she  had  been  in  the  old  days. 

"  There  !  "  said  ]\Iarcella,  with  relief,  "  that's  done.  Now,  who's 
this  ?    That  man  Wilkiiis !  " 

Her  tone  showed  her  disgust.  Wilkins  had  sprung  up  the  instant 
Wharton's  Conservative  opponent  had  given  the  first  decisive  sign 
of  sitting  down.     Another  man  on  the  same  side  was  also  tip,  but 


CHAP,  viii  MARCELLA  387 

Wilkins,  black  and  frowning,  held  his  own  stubbornly,  and  his 
rival  subsided. 

With  the  first  sentences  of  the  new  speech  the  House  knew  that 
it  was  to  have  an  emotion,  and  men  came  trooping  in  again.  And 
certainly  the  short  stormy  utterance  was  dramatic  enough.  Dis- 
sent on  the  part  of  an  important  north-country  Union  from  some 
of  the  most  vital  machinery  of  the  bill  which  had  been  sketched 
by  Wharton  —  personal  jealousy  and  distrust  of  the  mover  of  the 
resolution  —  denial  of  his  representative  place,  and  sneers  at  his 
kid-gloved  attempts  to  help  a  class  with  which  he  had  nothing  to 
do  —  the  most  violent  protest  against  the  servility  with  which  he 
had  truckled  to  the  now  effete  party  of  free  contract  and  political 
enfranchisement  —  and  the  most  jDassionate  assertion  that  between 
any  Labour  party,  worthy  of  the  name,  and  either  of  the  great 
parties  of  the  past  there  lay  and  must  lie  a  gulf  of  hatred,  un- 
fathomable and  unquenchable,  till  Labour  had  got  its  rights,  and 
landlord,  employer,  and  dividend-hunter  were  trampled  beneath 
its  heel — all  these  ugly  or  lurid  things  emerged  with  surprising 
clearness  from  the  torrent  of  north-country  speech.  For  twenty 
minutes  Xehemiah  Wilkins  rioted  in  one  of  the  best  "times"  of 
his  life.  That  he  was  an  orator  thousands  of  woi'king  men  had 
borne  him  witness  again  and  again  ;  and  in  his  own  opinion  he  had 
never  spoken  better. 

The  House  at  first  enjoyed  its  sensation.  Then,  as  the  hard 
words  rattled  on,  it  passed  easily  into  the  stage  of  amusement. 
Lady  Cradock's  burly  husband  bent  forward  from  the  front  Oppo- 
sition bench,  caught  Wharton's  eye,  and  smiled,  as  though  to  say : 
"  What !  —  you  haven't  even  been  able  to  keep  up  appearances  so 
far!"  And  Wilkius's  final  attack  upon  the  Liberals  —  who,  after 
ruining  their  own  chances  and  the  chances  of  the  country,  were 
now  come  cap  in  hand  to  the  working  man  whining  for  his  sup- 
port as  their  only  hope  of  recovery  —  was  delivered  to  a  mocking 
chorus  of  laughter  and  cheers,  in  the  midst  of  which,  with  an 
angry  shake  of  his  great  shoulders,  he  flung  himself  down  on 
his  seat. 

Meanwhile  Wharton,  who  had  spent  the  first  part  of  Wilkius's 
speech  in  a  state  of  restless  fidget,  his  hat  over  his  eyes,  was  alter- 
natelj^  sitting  erect  with  radiant  looks,  or  talking  rapidly  to  Ben- 
nett, who  had  come  to  sit  beside  him.  The  Home  Secretary  got 
up  after  Wilkins  had  sat  down,  and  spent  a  genial  forty  minutes 
in  delivering  the  Government  noti  possumus,  couched,  of  course,  in 
the  tone  of  deference  to  King  Labour  which  the  modern  statesman 
learns  at  his  mother's  knee,  but  enlivened  with  a  good  deal  of  iron- 
ical and  effective  perplexity  as  to  which  hand  to  shake  and  whose 
voice  to  follow,  and  winding  up  with  a  tribute  of  compliment  to 


388  MARCELLA  book  m 

Wharton,  mixed  with  some  neat  mock  condolence  with  the  Oppo- 
sition under  the  ferocities  of  some  others  of  its  nominal  friends. 

Altogether,  the  finished  performance  of  the  old  stager,  the  habitue. 
While  it  was  going  on,  Marcella  noticed  that  Aldous  Raeburn  had 
come  back  again  to  his  seat  next  to  the  Speaker,  who  was  his  offi- 
cial chief.  Every  now  and  then  the  Minister  tm'ned  to  him,  and 
Raeburn  handed  him  a  volume  of  Hansard  or  the  copy  of  some 
Parliamentary  Return  whence  the  great  man  was  to  quote.  Mar- 
cella watched  every  movement ;  then  from  the  Government  bench 
her  eye  sped  across  the  House  to  Wharton  sitting  once  more  buried 
in  his  hat,  his  arms  folded  in  front  of  him.  A  little  shiver  of  ex- 
citement ran  through  her.  The  tAvo  men  upon  whom  her  life  had 
so  far  turned  were  once  more  in  presence  of,  pitted  against,  each 
other —  and  she,  once  more,  looking  on! 

When  the  Home  Secretary  sat  down,  the  House  was  growing 
restive  with  thoughts  of  dinner,  and  a  general  movement  had 
begun  —  when  it  was  seen  that  Bennett  was  up.  Again  men  who 
had  gone  out  came  back,  and  those  who  were  still  there  resigned 
themselves.  Bennett  was  a  force  in  the  House,  a  man  always  lis- 
tened to  and  universally  respected,  and  the  curiosity  felt  as  to  the 
relations  between  him  and  this  new  star  and  would-be  leader  had 
been  for  some  time  considerable. 

When  Bennett  sat  down,  the  importance  of  the  member  for 
West  Brookshire,  both  in  the  House  and  in  the  country,  had  risen 
a  hundred  per  cent.  A  man  who  over  a  great  part  of  the  north 
was  in  labour  concerns  the  unquestioned  master  of  many  legions, 
and  whose  political  position  had  hitherto  been  one  of  conspicuous 
moderation,  even  to  his  own  hurt,  had  given  Wharton  the  warm- 
est possible  backing ;  had  endorsed  his  proposals,  to  their  most 
contentious  and  doubtful  details,  and  in  a  few  generous  though 
still  perhaps  ambiguous  words  had  let  the  House  see  what  he  per- 
sonally thought  of  the  services  rendered  to  labour  as  a  whole  dur- 
ing the  past  five  years,  and  to  the  weak  and  scattered  group  of 
Labour  members  in  particular,  since  his  entrance  into  Parliament, 
by  the  young  and  brilliant  man  beside  him. 

Bennett  was  no  orator.  He  was  a  plain  man,  ennobled  by  the 
training  of  religious  dissent,  at  the  same  time  indifferently  served 
often  by  an  imperfect  education.  But  the  very  simplicity  and 
homeliness  of  its  expression  gave  additional  weight  to  this  first 
avowal  of  a  strong  conviction  that  the  time  had  come  when  the 
Labour  party  must  have  separateness  and  a  leader  if  it  were  to 
rise  out  of  insignificance ;  to  this  frank  renunciation  of  whatever 
personal  claims  his  own  past  might  have  given  him ;  and  to  the 
promise  of  unqualified  support  to  the  policy  of  the  younger  man, 
in  both  its  energetic  and  conciliatory  aspects.     He  threw  out  a 


CHAP.  VIII  MARCELLA  389 

little  not  unkindly  indignation,  if  one  may  be  allowed  the  phrase, 
in  the  dii-ection  of  AVilkins  —  who  in  the  middle  of  the  speech 
abruptly  walked  out  —  and  before  he  sat  down,  the  close  atten- 
tion, the  looks,  the  cheers,  the  evident  excitement  of  the  men 
sitting  about  him,  —  amongst  whom  were  two-thirds  of  the  whole 
Labour  representation  in  Parliament  —  made  it  clear  to  the  House 
that  the  speech  marked  an  epoch  not  only  in  the  career  of  Harry 
Wharton,  but  in  the  parliamentary  history  of  the  great  industrial 
movement. 

The  white-bearded  bore  under  the  gallery,  whom  Wharton  had 
pointed  out  to  Marcella,  got  up  as  Bennett  subsided.  The  House 
streamed  out  like  one  man.  Bennett,  exhausted  by  the  heat  and 
the  effort,  mopped  his  brow  with  his  red  handkerchief,  and,  in 
the  tension  of  fatigue,  started  as  he  felt  a  touch  upon  his  arm. 
Wharton  was  bending  over  to  him  —  perfectly  white,  with  a  lip  he 
in  vain  tried  to  steady. 

"  I  can't  thank  you,"  he  said ;  "  I  should  make  a  fool  of  myself." 

Bennett  nodded  pleasantly,  and  presently  both  were  pressing 
into  the  out-going  crowd,  avoiding  each  other  with  the  ineradica- 
ble instinct  of  the  Englishman. 

Wharton  did  not  recover  his  self-control  completely  till,  after  an 
ordeal  of  talk  and  handshaking  in  the  lobby,  he  was  on  his  way  to 
the  Ladies'  Gallery.  Then  in  a  flash  he  found  himself  filled  with 
the  spirits,  the  exhilaration,  of  a  schoolboy.  This  wonderful  ex- 
perience behind  him!  —  and  upstairs,  waiting  for  him,  those  eyes, 
that  face!  How  could  he  get  her  to  himself  somehow  for  a 
moment  —  and  dispose  of  that  Craven  girl? 

"Well!"  he  said  to  her  joyously,  as  she  turned  roimd  in  the 
darkness  of  the  Gallery. 

But  she  was  seized  with  sudden  shyness,  and  he  felt,  rather  than 
saw,  the  glow  of  pleasure  and  excitement  which  possessed  her. 

"  Don't  let's  talk  here,"  she  said.  "  Can't  we  go  out  ?  I  am 
melted !  " 

"  Yes,  of  course !  Come  oir  to  the  terrace.  It's  a  divine  even- 
ing, and  we  shall  find  our  party  there.  Well,  Miss  Craven,  were 
you  interested?" 

Edith  smiled  demurely. 

"I  thought  it  a  good  debate,"  she  said. 

"  Confound  these  Venturist  prigs !  "  was  Wharton's  inward  re- 
mark as  he  led  the  way. 


390  MAECELLA 


CHAPTER  IX 

"  How  enchanting ! "  cried  Marcella,  as  they  emerged  on  the 
terrace,  and  river,  shore,  and  sky  opened  upon  theni  in  all  the 
thousand-tinted  light  and  shade  of  a  still  and  perfect  evening. 
"  Oh,  how  hot  we  were  —  and  how  badly  you  treat  us  in  those 
dens !  " 

Those  confident  eyes  of  Wharton's  shone  as  they  glanced  at  her. 

She  wore  a  pretty  white  dress  of  some  cotton  stuff  —  it  seemed 
to  him  he  remembered  it  of  old  —  and  on  the  v/aving  masses  of 
hair  lay  a  little  bunch  of  black  lace  that  called  itself  a  bonnet, 
with  black  strings  tied  demurely  under  the  chin.  The  abundance 
of  character  and  dignity  in  the  beauty  which  yet  to-night  was  so 
young  and  glowing  —  the  rich  arresting  note  of  the  voice  —  the 
inimitable  carriage  of  the  head  —  Wharton  realised  them  all  at 
the  moment  with  peculiar  vividness,  because  he  felt  them  in  some 
sort  as  additions  to  his  own  personal  wealth.  To-night  she  was  in 
his  power,  his  possession. 

The  terrace  was  full  of  people,  and  alive  with  a  Babel  of  talk. 
Yet,  as  he  carried  his  companions  forward  in  search  of  INIrs.  Lane, 
he  saw  that  Marcella  was  instantly  marked.  Every  one  who 
passed  them,  or  made  way  for  them,  looked  and  looked  again. 

The  girl,  absorbed  in  her  pleasant  or  agitating  impressions,  knew 
nothing  of  her  own  effect.     She  was  drinking  in  the  sunset  light 

—  the  poetic  mystery  of  the  river  —  the  lovely  line  of  the  bridge 

—  the  associations  of  the  place  where  she  stood,  of  this  great 
building  overshadowing  her.  Every  now  and  then  she  started  in 
a  kind  of  terror  lest  some  figure  in  the  dusk  should  be  Aldous' 
Raeburn  ;  then  when  a  stranger  showed  himself  she  gave  herself 
up  again  to  her  young  pleasure  in  the  crowd  and  the  spectacle. 
But  Wharton  knew  that  she  was  observed;  Wharton  caught  the 
whisper  that  followed  her.  His  vanity,  already  so  well-fed  this 
evening,  took  the  attention  given  to  her  as  so  much  fresh  homage 
to  itself ;  and  she  had  more  and  more  glamour  for  him  in  the 
reflected  light  of  this  publicity,  this  conunon  judgment. 

"  Ah,  here  are  the  Lanes  !  "  he  said,  detecting  at  last  a  short 
lady  in  black  amid  a  group  of  men. 

Marcella  and  Edith  were  introduced.  Then  Edith  found  a 
friend  in  a  young  London  member  who  was  to  be  one  of  the  party, 
and  strolled  off  with  him  till  dinner  should  be  announced. 

"I  will  just  take  Miss  Boyce  to  the  end  of  the  terrace,"  said 
Wharton  to  Mr.  Lane ;  "  we  shan't  get  anything  to  eat  yet  awhile. 
What  a  crowd !     The  Alresfords  not  come  yet,  I  see." 

Lane  shrugged  his  shoulders  as  he  looked  round. 


CHAP.  IX  MARCELLA  891 

"  Raeburn  has  a  party  to-night.  And  there  are  at  least  three  or 
four  others  besides  ourselves.  I  should  think  food  and  service 
will  be  equally  scarce  ! " 

AVharton  glanced  quickly  at  Marcella.  But  she  was  talking  to 
Mrs.  Lane,  and  had  heard  nothing. 

"  Let  me  just  show  you  the  terrace,"  he  said  to  her.  "  No 
chance  of  dinner  for  another  twenty  minutes." 

They  strolled  away  together.  As  they  moved  along,  a  number 
of  men  waylaid  the  speaker  of  the  night  with  talk  and  congratula- 
tions—  glancing  the  while  at  the  lady  on  his  left.  But  presently 
they  were  away  from  the  crowd  which  hung  about  the  main 
entrance  to  the  terrace,  and  had  reached  the  comparatively  quiet 
western  end,  where  were  only  a  few  pairs  and  groups  walking  up 
and  down. 

"Shall  I  see  Mr.  Bennett?"  she  asked  him  eagerly,  as  they 
paused  by  the  parapet,  looking  down  upon  the  grey-brown  water 
swishing  under  the  fast  incoming  tide.     "  I  want  to." 

"  I  asked  him  to  dine,  but  he  wouldn't.  He  has  gone  to  a  prayer- 
meeting —  at  least  I  guess  so.  There  is  a  famous  American  evan- 
gelist speaking  in  Westminster  to-night  —  I  am  as  certain  as  I 
ever  am  of  anything  that  Bennett  is  there  —  dining  on  Moody  and 
Sankey.  Men  are  a  medley,  don't  you  think?  —  So  you  liked  his 
speech  ?  " 

"  How  coolly  you  ask  !  "  she  said,  laughing.     "  Did  you  ?  " 

He  was  silent  a  moment,  his  smiling  gaze  fixed  on  the  water. 
Then  he  turned  to  her. 

"  How  much  gratitude  do  you  think  I  owe  him?  " 

"As  much  as  you  can  pay,"  she  said  with  emphasis.  "I  never 
heard  anything  more  complete,  more  generous." 

"  So  you  were  carried  away  ?  " 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  curious,  sudden  gravity — a  touch  of 
defiance. 

"No! — neither  by  him,  nor  by  you.  I  don't  believe  in  your 
Bill  —  and  I  am  su7-e  you  will  never  carry  it !  " 

Wharton  lifted  his  eyebrows. 

"Perhaps  you'll  tell  me  where  you  are,"  he  said,  "that  I  may 
know  how  to  talk  ?  When  we  last  discussed  these  things  at  Mellor, 
I  think —  you  were  a  Socialist?  " 

"  What  does  it  matter  what  I  was  last  year  ?  "  she  asked  him 
gaily,  yet  with  a  final  inflection  of  the  voice  which  was  not  gay; 
"  I  was  a  baby !  Now  perhaps  I  have  earned  a  few  poor,  little 
opinions —  but  they  are  a  ragged  bundle  —  and  I  have  never  any 
time  to  sort  them." 

"  Have  you  left  the  Venturists?  " 

"  No !  —  but  I  am  full  of  perplexities  ;  and  .the  Cravens,  I  see, 


392  MARCELLA  book  hi 

will  soon  be  for  turning  me  out.  You  understand  —  J  know  some 
working  folk  now !  " 

"  So  you  did  last  year." 

"  No  !  "  —  she  insisted,  shaking  her  head  —  "  that  was  all  differ- 
ent. But  now  I  am  in  their  world  —  I  live  with  them  —  and  they 
talk  to  me.  One  evening  in  the  week  I  am  '  at  home'  for  all  the 
people  I  know  in  our  Buildings  —  men  and  women.  Mrs.  Hurd  — 
you  know  who  I  mean?"  — her  brow  contracted  a  moment  —  "she 
comes  with  her  sewing  to  keep  me  company;  so  does  Edith  Craven ; 
and  sometimes  the  little  room  is  packed.  The  men  smoke  —  when 
we  can  have  the  windows  open  !  —  and  I  believe  I  shall  soon  smoke 
too  —  it  makes  them  talk  better.  We  get  all  sorts  —  Socialists, 
Conservatives,  Radicals  —  " 

"  —  And  you  don't  think  much  of  the  Socialists  ?  " 

"  Well !  they  are  the  interesting,  dreamy  fellows,"  she  said, 
laughing,  "  who  don't  save,  and  muddle  their  lives.  And  as  for 
argument,  the  Socialist  workman  doesn't  care  twopence  for  facts 

—  that  don't  suit  him.     It's  superb  the  way  he  treats  them!  " 

"  I  should  like  to  know  who  does  care  !  "  said  Wharton,  with  a 
shrug.  Then  he  turned  with  his  back  to  the  parapet,  the  better  to 
command  her.  He  had  taken  off  his  hat  for  coolness,  and  the  wind 
played  with  the  crisp  curls  of  hair.     "But  tell  me"  —  he  went  on 

—  "who  has  been  tampering  with  you?  Is  it  Hallin?  You  told 
me  you  saw  him  often." 

"  Perhaps.  But  wliat  if  it's  everything  ?  —  living  ?  —  saving  your 
presence !  A  year  ago  at  any  rate  the  world  was  all  black  —  or 
white  —  to  me.  Now  I  lie  awake  at  night,  puzzling  my  head  about 
the  shades  between  —  w^hich  makes  the  difference.  A  compulsory 
Eight  Hours'  Day  for  all  men  in  all  trades  ! "  Her  note  of  scorn 
startled  him.  "  You  know  you  won't  get  it !  And  all  the  other 
big  exasperating  things  you  talk  about  —  public  organisation  of 
labour,  and  the  rest  —  you  won't  get  them  till  all  the  world  is  a 
New  Jerusalem  —  and  when  the  world  is  a  New  Jerusalem  nobody 
will  want  them  !  " 

Wharton  made  her  an  ironical  bow. 

"  Nicely  said !  —  though  we  have  heard  it  before.  Upon  my 
word,  you  have  marched !  —  or  Edward  Hallin  has  carried  you. 
So  now  you  think  the  poor  are  as  well  off  as  possible,  in  the  best  of 
all  possible  worlds  —  is  that  the  result  of  your  nui'sing  ?  You  agi'ee 
with  Denny,  in  fact?  the  man  who  got  up  after  me?" 

His  tone  annoyed  her.  Then  suddenly  the  name  suggested  to 
her  a  recollection  that  brought  a  frown. 

"  That  was  the  man,  then,  you  attacked  in  the  Clarion  this 
morning  ! " 

"  Ah  !   you   read    me ! "   said   AVharton,    with   sudden   pleasure. 


CHAP.  IX  MARCELLA  393 

"Yes  —  that  opened  the  campaign.  As  you  know,  of  course,  Cra- 
ven has  gone  down,  and  the  strike  begins  next  week.  Soon  we 
shall  bring  two  batteries  to  bear,  he  letting  fly  as  correspondent, 
and  1  from  the  office.     I  enjoyed  writing  that  article." 

"  So  I  should  think,"  she  said  drily ;  "  all  I  know  is,  it  made  one 
reader  passionately  certain  that  there  was  another  side  to  the  mat- 
ter !  There  may  not  be.  I  dare  say  there  isn't ;  but  on  me  at  least 
that  was  the  effect.     Why  is  it  "  —  she  broke  out  with  vehemence 

—  "  that  not  a  single  Labour  paper  is  ever  capable  of  the  simplest 
justice  to  an  opponeiat?  " 

"You  think  any  other  sort  of  paper  is  any  better?"  he  asked 
her  scornfully. 

"  I  dare  say  not.  But  that  doesn't  matter  to  me !  it  is  we  who 
talk  of  justice,  of  respect,  and  sympathy  from  man  to  man,  and 
then  we  go  and  blacken  the  men  who  don't  agree  with  us  —  whole 
classes,  that  is  to  say,  of  our  fellow-countrymen,  not  in  the  old 
honest  slashing  style,  Tartuffes  that  we  are  !  —  but  with  all  the 
delicate  methods  of  a  new  art  of  slander,  pursued  almost  for  its 
own  sake.  We  know  so  much  better  —  always  —  than  our  oppo- 
nents, we  hardly  condescend  even  to  be  angry.     One  is  only  '  sorry ' 

—  'obliged  to  punish'  —  like  the  priggish  governess  of  one's  child- 
hood !  " 

In  spite  of  himself,  Wharton  flushed. 

"  My  best  thanks  !  "  he  said.  "  Anything  more  ?  I  prefer  to  take 
my  drubbing  all  at  once." 

She  looked  at  him  steadily. 

"Why  did  you  write,  or  allow  that  article  on  the  West  Brook- 
shire  landlords  two  days  ago  ?  " 

Wharton  started. 

"  Well !  wasn't  it  true  ?  " 

"  No  1 "  she  said  with  a  curling  lip ;  "  and  I  think  you  know  it 
wasn't  true." 

"  What !  as  to  tlie  Raeburns  ?  Upon  my  word,  I  should  have 
imagined,"  he  said  slowly,  "  that  it  represented  your  views  at  one 
time  with  tolerable  accuracy." 

Her  nerve  suddenly  deserted  her.  She  bent  over  the  parapet, 
and,  taking  up  a  tiny  stone  that  lay  near,  she  threw  it  unsteadily 
into  the  river.     He  saw  the  hand  shake. 

"Look  here,"  he  said,  turning  round  so  that  he  too  leant  over 
the  river,  his  arms  on  the  parapet,  his  voice  close  to  her  ear.  "  Are 
you  always  going  to  quarrel  with  me  like  this?  Don't  you  know 
that  thei'e  is  no  one  in  the  world  I  would  sooner  please  if  I  could  ?  " 

She  did  not  speak. 

"  In  the  first  place,"  he  said,  laughing,  "  as  to  my  speech,  do  you 
suppose  that  I  believe  in  that  Bill  which  I  described  just  now?" 


394  MARCELLA  book  iii 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  said  indignantly,  once  more  playing  with 
the  stones  on  the  wall.     "  It  sounded  like  it." 

"That  is  my  gift  —  my  little  carillon,  as  Renan  would  say.  But 
do  you  imagine  I  want  you  or  any  one  else  to  tell  me  that  we 
shan't  get  such  a  Bill  for  generations?     Of  course  we  shan't!  " 

"Then  why  do  you  make  farcical  speeches,  bamboozling  your 
friends  and  misleading  the  House  of  Commons?  " 

He  saw  the  old  storm-signs  with  glee  —  the  lightning  in  the  eye, 
the  rose  on  the  cheek.  She  was  never  so  beautiful  as  when  she 
was  angry. 

"  Because,  my  dear  lady  —  loe  must  generate  our  force.  Steam 
must  be  got  up  —  I  am  engaged  in  doing  it.  We  shan't  get  a  com- 
pulsory eight  hours'  day  for  all  trades — but  in  the  course  of  the 
agitation  for  that  precious  illusion,  and  by  the  help  of  a  great  deal 
of  beating  of  tom-toms,  and  gathering  of  clans,  we  shall  get  a 
great  many  other  things  by  the  way  that  we  do  want.  Hearten 
your  friends,  and  frighten  your  enemies  —  there  is  no  other  way  of 
scoring  in  politics— and  the  particular  score  doesn't  matter.  Now 
don't  look  at  me  as  if  you  would  like  to  impeach  me  !  —  or  I  shall 
turn  the  tables.  I  am  still  fighting  for  my  illusions  in  my  own 
way  — you,  it  seems,  have  given  up  yours  !  " 

But  for  once  he  had  underrated  her  sense  of  humour.  She 
broke  into  a  low  merry  laugh  which  a  little  disconcerted  him. 

"  You  mock  nie  ?  "  he  said  quickly  —  "  think  me  insincere,  un- 
scrupulous?—  Well,  I  dare  say!  But  you  have  no  right  to  mock 
me.  Last  year,  again  and  again,  you  promised  me  guerdon.  Now 
it  has  come  to  paying  —  and  I  claim !  " 

His  low  distinct  voice  in  her  ear  had  a  magnetising  effect  upon 
her.  She  slowly  turned  her  face  to  him,  overcome  by  —  yet  fight- 
ing against  —  memory.  If  she  had  seen  in  him  the  smallest  sign 
of  reference  to  that  scene  she  hated  to  think  of,  he  would  have 
probably  lost  this  hold  upon  her  on  the  spot.  But  his  tact  was 
pei'fect.  She  saw  nothing  but  a  look  of  dignity  and  friendship, 
which  brought  upon  her  with  a  rush  all  those  tragic  things  they 
had  shared  and  fought  through,  purifying  things  of  pity  and  fear, 
which  had  so  often  seemed  to  her  the  atonement  for,  the  washing 
away  of  that  old  baseness. 

He  saw  her  face  tremble  a  little.     Then  she  said  proudly  — 

"  I  promised  to  be  grateful.     So  I  am." 

"  No,  no !  "  he  said,  still  in  the  same  low  tone.  "  You  promised 
me  a  friend.     Where  is  she  ?" 

She  made  no  answer.  Her  hands  were  hanging  loosely  over  the 
water,  and  her  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  haze  opposite,  whence  emerged 
the  blocks  of  the  great  hospital  and  the  twinkling  points  of  innu- 
merable lamps.     But  his  gaze  compelled  her  at  last,  and  she  turned 


CHAP.  IX  MAKCELLA  395 

back  to  him.  He  saw  an  expression  half  hostile,  half  moved,  and 
pressed  on  befoi-e  she  could  speak. 

''  Why  do  you  bury  yourself  in  that  nursing  life  ?  "  he  said  drily. 
"  It  is  not  the  life  for  you  ;  it  does  not  fit  you  in  the  least." 

"  You  test  your  friends !  "  she  cried,  her  cheek  flaming  again  at 
the  provocative  change  of  voice.  "What  possible  right  have  you 
to  that  remark?  " 

"  I  know  you,  and  I  know  the  causes  you  want  to  serve.  You 
can't  serve  them  where  you  are.  Nursing  is  not  for  you  ;  you  are 
wanted  among  your  own  class  —  among  your  equals  —  among  the 
people  who  are  changing  and  shaping  England.  It  is  absurd. 
You  are  masquerading." 

She  gave  him  a  little  sarcastic  nod. 

"  Thank  you.  I  am  doing  a  little  honest  work  for  the  first  time 
in  my  life." 

He  laughed.  It  was  impossible  to  tell  whether  he  was  serious 
or  posing. 

"You  are  just  what  you  were  in  one  respect —  terribly  in  the 
right !  Be  a  little  humble  to-night  for  a  change.  Come,  conde- 
scend to  the  classes  !     Do  you  see  Mr.  Lane  calling  us  ?  " 

And,  in  fact,  Mr.  Lane,  with  his  arm  in  the  air,  was  eagerly 
beckoning  to  them  from  the  distance. 

"Do  you  know  Lady  Selina  Farrell?"  he  asked  her,  as  they 
walked  quickly  back  to  the  dispersing  crowd. 

"  No ;  who  is  she  ?  " 

Wharton  laughed. 

"Providence  should  contrive  to  let  Lady  Selina  overhear  that 
question  once  a  week  —  in  your  tone  !  Well,  she  is  a  personage  — 
Lord  Alresford's  daughter  —  unmarried,  rich,  has  a  salon,  or  thinks 
she  has  —  manipulates  a  great  many  people's  fortunes  and  lives,  or 
thinks  she  does,  which,  after  all,  is  what  matters  —  to  Lady  Selina. 
She  wants  to  know  you,  badly.  Do  you  think  you  can  be  kind  to 
her?  There  she  is  —  you  will  let  me  introduce  you?  She  dines 
with  us." 

In  another  moment  Marcella  had  been  introduced  to  a  tall,  fair 
lady  in  a  very  fashionable  black  and  pink  bonnet,  who  held  out  a 
gracious  hand. 

"  I  have  heard  so  much  of  you ! "  said  Lady  Selina,  as  they 
walked  along  the  passage  to  the  dining-room  together.  "  It  must 
be  so  wonderful,  your  nursing !  " 

Marcella  laughed  rather  restively. 

"No,  I  don't  think  it  is,"  she  said  ;  "  there  ai'e  so  many  of  us." 

"Oh,  but  the  things  you  do  —  Mr.  Wharton  told  me  —  so  inter- 
esting ! " 

Marcella  said  nothing,  and  as  to  lier  looks  the  passage  was  dark. 


396  MARCELLA  book  in 

Lady  Selina  thought  her  a  very  handsome  but  very  gauche  young 
woman.  Still,  gauche  or  no,  she  had  thrown  over  Aldous  Raeburn 
and  thirty  thousand  a  year  ;  an  act  which,  as  Lady  Selina  admitted, 
put  you  out  of  the  common  run. 

"  Do  you  know  most  of  the  people  dining?  "  she  enquired  in  her 
blandest  voice.  "  But  no  doubt  you  do.  You  are  a  great  friend 
of  Mr.  Wharton's,  I  think  ?  " 

"  He  stayed  at  our  house  last  year,"  said  Marcella,  abruptly. 
"  Xo,  I  don't  know  anybody." 

"Then  shall  I  tell  you?  It  makes  it  more  interesting,  doesn't 
it?     It  ought  to  be  a  pleasant  little  party." 

And  the  great  lady  lightly  ran  over  the  names.  It  seemed  to 
Marcella  that  most  of  them  were  very  "  smart "  or  very  important. 
Some  of  the  smart  names  were  vaguely  known  to  her  from  Miss 
Raeburn's  talk  of  last  year ;  and,  besides,  there  were  a  couple  of 
Tory  Cabinet  ministers  and  two  or  three  prominent  members.  It 
was  all  rather  surprising. 

At  dinner  she  found  herself  between  one  of  the  Cabinet  ministers 
and  the  young  and  good-looking  private  secretary  of  the  other. 
Both  men  were  agreeable,  and  very  willing,  besides,  to  take  trouble 
with  this  unknown  beauty.  The  minister,  who  knew  the  Rae- 
burns  very  well,  was  discussing  with  himself  all  the  time  whether 
this  was  indeed  the  Miss  Boyce  of  that  story.  His  suspicion  and 
curiosity  were  at  any  rate  sufficiently  strong  to  make  him  giv^e 
himself  much  pains  to  draw  her  out. 

Her  own  conversation,  however,  was  much  distracted  by  the 
attention  she  could  not  help  giving  to  her  host  and  his  surround- 
ings. Wharton  had  Lady  Selina  on  his  right,  and  the  young  and 
distinguished  wife  of  Marcella's  minister  on  his  left.  At  the  other 
end  of  the  table  sat  Mrs.  Lane,  doing  her  duty  spasmodically  to 
Lord  Alresford,  who  still,  in  a  blind  old  age,  gave  himself  all  the 
airs  of  the  current  statesman  and  possible  premier.  But  the  talk, 
on  the  whole,  was  general  —  a  gay  and  careless  give-and-take  of 
parliamentary,  social,  and  racing  gossip,  the  ball  flying  from  one 
accustomed  hand  to  another. 

And  Marcella  could  not  get  over  the  astonishment  of  Wharton's 
part  in  it.  She  shut  her  eyes  sometimes  for  an  instant  and  tried 
to  see  him  as  her  girl's  fancy  had  seen  him  at  Mellor  —  the  solitary, 
eccentric  figure  pursued  by  the  hatreds  of  a  renounced  Patrician- 
ate —  bringing  the  enmity  of  his  own  order  as  a  pledge  and  offering 
to  the  Plebs  he  asked  to  lead.  Where  even  was  the  speaker  of  an 
hour  ago?  Chat  of  Ascot  and  of  Newmarket;  discussion  with 
Lady  Selina  or  with  his  left-hand  neighbour  of  country-house 
"sets,"  with  a  patter  of  names  which  sounded  in  her  scornful  ear 
like  a  paragraph  from  the  World ;  above  all,  a  general  air  of  easy 


CHAP.   IX  MARCELLA  .307 

comradeship,  which  no  one  at  this  table,  at  any  rate,  seemed  in- 
clined to  dispute,  with  every  exchisiveness  and  every  amusement 
of  the  "idle  rich,"  whereof  —  in  the  popular  idea  —  he  was  held  to 
be  one  of  the  very  particular  foes  !  — 

No  doubt,  as  the  dinner  moved  on,  this  first  impression  changed 
somewhat.  She  began  to  distinguish  notes  that  had  at  first  been 
lost  upon  her.  She  caught  the  mocking,  ambiguous  tone  under 
which  she  herself  had  so  often  fumed ;  she  watched  the  occasional 
recoil  of  the  women  about  him,  as  though  they  had  been  playing 
with  some  soft-pawed  animal,  and  had  been  suddenly  startled  by  the 
gleam  of  its  claws.  These  things  puzzled,  partly  propitiated  her. 
But  on  the  whole  she  was  restless  and  hostile.  How  was  it  pos- 
sible—  from  such  personal  temporising  —  such  a  frittering  of  the 
forces  and  sympathies  —  to  win  the  singie-mindedness  and  the 
power  without  which  no  great  career  is  built  ?  She  wanted  to  talk 
with  him  —  reproach  him  ! 

"Well  —  I  must  go  —  worse  luck,"  said  Wharton  at  last,  laying 
down  his  napkin  and  rising.  "Lane,  will  you  take  charge?  I  will 
join  you  outside  later." 

"If  he  ever  finds  us!"  said  her  neighbour  to  Marcella.  "I 
never  saw  the  place  so  crowded.  It  is  odd  how  people  enjoy  these 
scrambling  meals  in  these  very  ugly  rooms." 

Marcella,  smiling,  looked  down  with  him  over  the  bare  coffee- 
tavern  place,  in  which  their  party  occupied  a  sort  of  high  table 
across  the  end,  while  two  other  small  gatherings  were  accommo- 
dated in  the  space  below. 

"  Are  there  any  other  rooms  than  this  ?  "  she  asked  idly. 

"  One  more,"  said  a  young  man  across  the  table,  who  had  been 
introduced  to  her  in  the  dusk  outside,  and  had  not  yet  succeeded 
in  getting  her  to  look  at  him,  as  he  desired.  "  But  there  is  another 
big  party  there  to-night  —  Raeburn  — you  know,"  he  went  on  in- 
nocently, addressing  the  minister;  "  he  has  got  the  AVinterbournes 
and  the  Macdonalds  —  quite  a  gathering — rather  an  unusual  thing 
for  him." 

The  minister  glanced  quickly  at  his  companion.  But  she  had 
turned  to  answer  a  question  from  Lady  Selina,  and  thenceforward, 
till  the  party  rose,  she  gave  him  little  opportunity  of  observing  her. 

As  the  outward-moving  stream  of  guests  was  once  more  in  the 
corridor  leading  to  the  terrace,  Marcella  hurriedly  made  her  way  to 
Mrs.  Lane. 

"  I  think,"  she  said  —  "I  am  afraid  —  we  ought  to  be  going  —  my 
friend  and  I.  Perhaps  Mr.  Lane  —  perhaps  he  would  just  show  us 
the  way  out ;  we  can  easily  find  a  cab." 

There  was  an  imploring,  urgent  look  in  her  face  which  struck  Mrs. 
Lane.    But  Mr.  Lane's  loud  friendly  voice  broke  in  from  behind. 


398  '  MARCELLA  book  in 

"  My  dear  Miss  Boyce  !  —  we  can't  possibly  allow  it  —  no  I   no 

—  just  half  an  hour  —  while  they  bring  us  our  coffee  —  to  do  your 
homage,  you  know,  to  the  terrace  —  and  the  river  —  and  the  moon  ! 

—  And  then  —  if  you  don't  want  to  go  back  to  the  House  for  .the 
division,  we  will  see  you  safely  into  your  cab.     Look  at  the  moon  ! 

—  and  the  tide  "  —  they  had  come  to  the  wide  door  opening  on  the 
terrace —  "  aren't  they  doing  their  very  best  for  you?  " 

Marcella  looked  behind  her  in  despair.  Whei-e  was  Edith?  Far 
in  the  rear! — and  fully  occupied  appai'ently  with  two  or  three 
pleasant  companions.  She  could  not  help  herself.  She  was  carried 
on,  with  Mr.  Lane  chatting  beside  her  —  though  the  sight  of  the 
shining  terrace,  with  its  moonlit  crowd  of  figures,  breathed  into  her 
a  terror  and  pain  she  could  hardly  control. 

"  Come  and  look  at  the  water,"  she  said  to  Mr.  Lane  ;  "  I  would 
rather  not  walk  up  and  down  if  you  don't  mind." 

He  thought  she  was  tired,  and  politely  led  her  through  the  sit- 
ting or  promenading  groups  till  once  more  she  was  leaning  over 
the  parapet,  now  trying  to  talk,  now  to  absorb  herself  in  the 
magic  of  bridge,  river,  and  sky,  but  in  reality  listening  all  the 
time  with  a  shrinking  heart  for  the  voices  and  the  footfalls  that 
she  dreaded.  Lady  VVinterbourne,  above  all !  How  unlucky !  It 
was  only  that  morning  that  she  had  received  a  forwarded  letter 
from  that  old  friend,  asking  urgently  for  news  and  her  address. 

"  Well,  how  did  you  like  the  speech  to-night  —  the  speech?"  said 
Mr.  Lane,  a  genial  Gladstonian  member,  more  heavily  weighted 
with  estates  than  with  ideas.  "It  was  splendid,  wasn't  it?  —  in 
the  way  of  speaking.  Speeches  like  that  are  a  safety-valve  — 
that's  my  view  of  it.  Have  'em  out  —  all  these  ideas  —  get  'em 
discussed!"  —  with  a  good-humoured  shake  of  the  head  for  em- 
phasis. "  Does  nobody  any  harm  and  may  do  good.  I  can  tell 
you.  Miss  Boyce,  the  House  of  Commons  is  a  capital  place  for 
taming  these  clever  young  men  !  —  you  must  give  them  their  head 

—  and  they  make  excellent  fellows  after  a  bit.  Why  —  who's 
this?  —  My  dear  Lady  Winterbourne !  —  this  is  a  sight  for  sair 
een ! " 

And  the  portly  member  with  great  effusion  grasped  the  hand 
of  a  stately  lady  in  black,  whose  abundant  white  hair  caught  the 
moonlight. 

"  Marcella !  "  cried  a  woman's  voice. 

Yes  —  there  he  was!  —  close  behind  Lady  Winterbourne.  In 
the  soft  darkness  he  and  his  party  had  run  upon  the  two  persons 
talking  over  the  wall  without  an  idea  —  a  suspicion. 

She  hurriedly  withdrew  herself  from  Lady  Winterbourne,  hesi- 
tated a  second,  then  held  out  her  hand  to  him.  The  light  was 
behind  him.     She  could  not  see  his  face  in  the  darkness;  but  she 


CHAi-.  IX  MARCELLA  399 

was  suddenly  and  strangely  conscious  of  the  whole  scene  —  of  the 
great  dark  building  with  its  lines  of  fairy-lit  gothic  windows  — 
the  blue  gulf  of  the  river  crossed  by  lines  of  wavering  light  —  the 
swift  passage  of  a  steamer  with  its  illuminated  saloon  and  crowded 
deck  —  of  the  wonderful  mixture  of  moonlight  and  sunset  in  the 
air  and  sky — of  this  dark  figure  in  front  of  her. 

Their  hands  touched.  Was  there  a  murmured  word  from  him  ? 
She  did  not  know ;  she  was  too  agitated,  too  unhappy  to  hear  it 
if  there  was.  She  threw  herself  upon  Lady  Winterbourne,  in 
whom  she  divined  at  once  a  tremor  almost  equal  to  her  own. 

"  Oh  !  do  come  with  me  —  come  away  !  —  I  want  to  talk  to  you !  " 
she  said  incoherently  under  her  breath,  drawing  Lady  Winter- 
bourne  with  a  strong  hand. 

Lady  Winterbourne  yielded,  bewildered,  and  they  moved  along 
the  terrace. 

"  Oh,  mj'  dear,  my  dear  !  "  cried  the  elder  lady  —  "  to  think  of  find- 
ing you  here  !  How  astonishing  —  how  —  how  dreadful !  No !  — 
I  don't  mean  that.  Of  course  you  and  he  must  meet  —  but  it  was 
only  yesterday  he  told  me  he  had  never  seen  you  again  —  since  — 
and  it  gave  me  a  turn.  I  was  very  foolish  just  now.  There  now 
—  stay  here  a  moment — -and  tell  me  about  yourself." 

And  again  they  paused  by  the  river,  the  girl  glancing  nervously 
behind  her  as  though  she  were  in  a  company  of  ghosts.  Lady 
Winterbourne  recovered  herseK,  and  Marcella,  looking  at  her,  saw 
the  old  tragic  severity  of  feature  and  mien  blurred  with  the  same 
softness,  the  same  delicate  tremor.  Marcella  clung  to  her  with 
almost  a  daughter's  feeling.  She  took  up  the  white  wrinkled  hand 
as  it  lay  on  the  parapet,  and  kissed  it  in  the  dark  so  that  no  one  saw. 

"  I  am  glad  to  see  you  again,"  she  said  passionately,  "  so  glad  !  " 

Lady  Winterbourne  was  surprised  and  moved. 

"  But  you  have  never  written  all  these  months,  you  unkind  child ! 
And  I  have  heard  so  little  of  you  —  your  mother  never  seemed  to 
know.  When  will  you  come  and  see  me  —  or  shall  I  come  to  you? 
I  can't  stay  now,  for  we  were  just  going;  my  daughter,  Ermyn- 
trude  Welwyn,  has  to  take  some  one  to  a  ball.  How  strange  "  — 
she  broke  off — "  how  very  strange  that  you  and  he  should  have 
met  to-night !  He  goes  off  to  Italy  to-morrow,  you  know,  with 
Lord  Maxwell." 

"  Yes,  I  had  heard,"  said  Marcella,  more  steadily.  "  Will  you 
come  to  tea  with  me  next  week? — Oh,  I  will  write.  —  And  we 
must  go  too  —  where  can  my  friend  be  ?  " 

She  looked  round  in  dismay,  and  up  and  down  the  terrace  for 
Edith. 

"I  will  take  you  back  to  the  Lanes,  anyway,"  said  Lady  Winter- 
bourne ;  "  or  shall  we  look  after  you?  " 


400  MARCELLA  book  hi 

"  No  !  no !     Take  me  back  to  the  Lanes." 

"Mamma,  are  you  coming?"  said  a  voice  like  a  softened  version 
of  Lady  Winterboiirne's.  Then  something  small  and  thin  ran 
forward,  and  a  girl's  voice  said  piteously : 

"  Dear  Lady  Wintevbourne,  my  frock  and  my  hair  take  so  long 
to  do !  I  shall  be  cross  with  my  maid,  and  look  like  a  fiend. 
Ermyntrude  will  be  sorry  she  ever  knew  me.     Do  come !  " 

"  Don't  cry,  Betty.  I  certainly  shan't  take  you  if  you  do ! " 
said  Lady  P^rmyntrude,  laughing.  "  Mamma,  is  this  Miss  Boyce 
—  your  Miss  Boyce  ?  " 

She  and  Marcella  shook  hands,  and  they  talked  a  little.  Lady 
Ermyntrude  under  cover  of  the  darkness  looking  hard  and  curi- 
ously at  the  tall  stranger  whom,  as  it  happened,  she  had  never 
seen  before.  Marcella  had  little  notion  of  what  she  was  saying. 
She  was  far  more  conscious  of  the  girlish  form  hanging  on  Lady 
Winterbourne's  arm  than  she  was  of  her  own  words,  of  "  Betty's  " 
beautiful  soft  eyes  —  also  shyly  and  gravely  fixed  upon  herself  — 
under  that  marvellous  cloud  of  fair-  hair ;  the  long,  pointed  chin ; 
the  whimsical  little  face. 

"  Well,  none  of  you  are  any  good  !  "  said  Betty  at  last,  in  a  tragic 
voice.  "I  shall  have  to  walk  home  rayown  poor  little  self,  and 
'  ask  a  p'leeceman.'     Mr.  Raeburn !  " 

He  disengaged  himself  from  a  group  behind  and  came  —  with  no 
alacrity.     Betty  ran  up  to  him. 

"  Mr.  Raeburn !  Ermyntrude  and  Lady  Winterbourne  are  going 
to  sleep  here,  if  you  don't  mind  making  arrangements.  But  1  want 
a  hansom." 

At  that  very  moment  Marcella  caught  sight  of  Edith  strolling 
along  towards  her  with  a  couple  of  members,  and  chatting  as 
though  the  world  had  never  rolled  more  evenly. 

"  Oh  !  there  she  is  —  there  is  my  friend  ! "  cried  Marcella  to  Lady 
Winterbourne.     "  Good-night  —  good-night !  " 

She  was  hurrying  off  when  she  saw  Aldous  Raeburn  was  stand- 
ing alone  a  moment.  The  exasperated  Betty  had  made  a  dart 
from  his  side  to  "  collect  "  another  straying  member  of  the  party. 

An  impulse  she  could  not  master  scattered  her  wretched  dis- 
comfort —  even  her  chafing  sense  of  being  the  observed  of  many 
eyes.     She  walked  up  to  him. 

"Will  you  tell  me  about  Lord  Maxwell?"  she  said  in  a  tremu- 
lous hurry.     "  I  am  so  sorry  he  is  ill  —  I  hadn't  heard  —  I  —  " 

She  dared  not  look  up.     Was  that  his  voice  answering? 

"  Thank  you.  We  have  been  very  anxious  about  him;  but  the 
doctors  to-day  give  a  rather  better  report.  We  take  him  abroad 
to-morrow." 

"  Marcella  !  at  last !  "  cried  Edith  Craven,  catching  hold  of  her 


CHAP.  IX  MARCELLA  401 

friend;  "you  lost  me?  Oh,  nonsense;  it  was  all  the  other  way. 
But  look,  there  is  Mr.  Wharton  coming  out.  1  must  go  —  come 
and  say  good-night  —  everybody  is  departing." 

Aldous  Raeburn  lifted  his  hat.  ^larcella  felt  a  sudden  rush  ot 
humiliation  —  pain  —  sore  resentment.  That  cold,  strange  tone  — 
those  unwilling  words  ! —  She  had  gone  up  to  him  —  as  undisci- 
plined in  her  repentance  as  she  had  been  in  aggi'ession  — full  of  a 
passionate  yearning  to  make  friends  —  somehow  to  convey  to  him 
that  she  "  was  sorrv,"  in  the  old  child's  phrase  which  lier  self-willed 
childhood  had  used  so  little.  There  could  be  no  misunderstanding- 
possible  !  He  of  all  men  knew  best  how  irrevocable  it  all  was. 
But  why,  when  life  has  brought  reflection,  and  you  I'ealise  at  last 
that  you  have  vitally  hurt,  perhaps  maimed,  another  human  being, 
should  it  not  be  possible  to  fling  conventions  aside,  and  go  to  that 
human  being  witla  the  frank  confession  which  by  all  the  promises 
of  ethics  and  religion  ought  to  bring  peace  —  peace  and  a  soothed 
conscience? 

But  she  had  been  repulsed  —  put  aside,  so  she  took  it  —  and  by 
one  of  the  kindest  and  most  generous  of  men  !  She  moved  along 
the  terrace  in  a  maze,  seeing  nothing,  biting  her  lip  to  keep  back 
tiie  angry  tears.  All  that  obscure  need,  that  new  stirring  of  moral 
life  within  her  —  which  had  found  issue  in  this  little  futile  advance 
towards  a  man  who  had  once  loved  her  and  could  now,  it  seemed, 
only  despise  and  dislike  her  —  was  beating  and  swelling  stormlike 
within  her.  She  had  taken  being  loved  so  easily,  so  much  as  a 
matter  of  course  !  How  was  it  that  it  hurt  her  now  so  much  to  have 
lost  love,  and  power,  and  consideration?  She  had  never  felt  any 
passion  for  Aldous  Raeburn  —  had  taken  him  lightly  and  shaken 
him  off  with  a  minimum  of  remorse.  Yet  to-night  a  few  cold 
words  from  him  —  the  proud  manner  of  a  moment  —  had  inflicted 
a  smart  upon  her  she  could  hardly  bear.  They  had  made  her  feel 
herself  so  alone,  unhappy,  uncared  for  ! 

But,  on  the  contrary,  she  must  be  happy! — must  be  loved!  To 
this,  and  this  only,  had  she  been  brought  by  the  hard  experience 
of  this  strenuous  year. 

"  Oh,  Mrs.  Lane,  he  an  angel ! "  exclaimed  Wharton's  voice. 
"Just  one  turn  —  five  minutes!  The  division  will  be  called 
directly,  and  then  we  will  all  thank  our  stars  and  go  to  bed !  " 

In  another  instant  he  was  at  Marcella's  side,  bare-headed,  radiant, 
reckless  even,  as  he  was  wont  to  be  in  moments  of  excitement.  He 
had  seen  her  speak  to  Raeburn  as  he  came  out  on  the  terrace,  but 
his  mind  was  too  full  for  any  perception  of  other  people's  situations 
—  even  hers.  He  was  absorbed  with  himself,  and  with  h-^r,  as  she 
fitted  his  present  need.  The  smile  of  satisfied  vanity,  of  stimulated 
2d 


402  -  MARCELLA  book  in 

ambition,  was  on  his  lips ;  and  his  good-humour  inclined  him  more 
than  ever  to  Marcella,  and  tlie  pleasure  of  a  woman's  company. 
He  passed  with  ease  from  triumph  to  homage;  his  talk  now  auda- 
cious, now  confiding,  offered  her  a  deference,  a  flattery,  to  which, 
as  he  was  fully  conscious,  the  events  of  the  evening  had  lent  a  new 
prestige. 

She,  too,  in  his  eyes,  had  triumphed  —  had  made  her  mark.  His 
ears  were  full  of  the  comments  made  upon  her  to-night  by  the  little 
world  on  the  terrace.  If  it  were  not  for  money  —  hateful  money! 
—  what  more  brilliant  wife  could  be  desired  for  any  rising  man  ? 

So  the  five  minutes  lengthened  into  ten,  and  by  the  time  the 
division  was  called,  and  Wharton  hurried  off,  Marcella,  soothed, 
taken  out  of  herself,  rescued  from  the  emptines*-  and  forlornness 
of  a  tragic  moment,  had  given  him  more  conscious  cause  than  she 
had  ever  given  him  yet  to  think  her  kind  and  fair. 


CHAPTER  X 

"My  dear  Ned,  do  be  reasonable!  Your  sister  is  in  despair, 
and  so  am  I.  Why  do  you  torment  us  by  staying  on  here  in  the 
heat,  and  taking  all  these  engagements,  which  you  know  you  are 
no  more  fit  for  than  —  " 

"  A  sick  grasshopper,",laughed  Hallin.  "  Healthy  viTetch  !  Did 
Heaven  give  you  that  sun-burn  only  that  you  might  come  home 
from  Italy  and  twit  us  weaklings?  Do  you  think  I  toant  to  look 
as  rombustious  as  you?     ' Nothing  too  much,'  my  good  friend  1  " 

Aldous  looked  down  upon  the  speaker  with  an  anxiety  quite 
untouched  by  Hallin's  "  chaff." 

"  Miss  Hallin  tells  me,"  he  persisted,  "  that  you  are  wearing 
yourself  out  with  this  lecturing  campaign,  that  you  don't  sleep, 
and  that  she  is  more  unhappy  about  you  than  she  has  been  for 
months.  Why  not  give  it  up  now,  rest,  and  begin  again  in  the 
winter  ?  " 

Hallin  smiled  a  little  as  he  sat  with  the  tips  of  his  fingers  lightly 
joined  in  front  of  him. 

"I  doubt  whether  I  shall  live  through  the  winter,"  he  said 
quietly. 

Raeburn  started.  Hallin  in  general  spoke  of  his  health,  when 
he  allowed  it  to  be  mentioned  at  all,  in  the  most  cheerful  terms. 

"  Why  you  should  behave  as  though  you  tvished  to  make  such  a 
prophecy  true  I  can't  conceive  !  "  he  said  in  impatient  pain. 

Hallin  offered  no  immediate  answer,  and  Raeburn,  who  was 
standing  in  front  of  him,  leaning  against  the  wood-work  of  the 
open  window,  looked  unhappily  at  the  face  and  form  of  his  friend. 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  403 

In  youth  that  face  had  possessed  a  Greek  serenity  and  blitheness, 
dependent  perhaps  on  its  clear  aquiline  feature,  the  steady  trans- 
parent eyes  —  coeli  lucida  templa — the  fresh  fairness  of  the  com- 
plexion, and  the  boyish  brow  under  its  arch  of  pale  brown  hair. 
And  to  stronger  men  there  had  always  been  something  peculiarly 
winning  in  the  fragile  grace  of  figure  and  movements,  suggesting, 
as  they  did,  sad  and  perpetual  compromise  between  the  spii'it's 
eagerness  and  the  body's  weakness. 

"Don't  make  yourself  unhappy,  my  dear  boy,"  said  Hallin  at 
last,  putting  up  a  thin  hand  and  touching  his  friend  —  "I  shall 
give  up  soon.  Moreover,  it  will  give  me  up.  Workmen  want  to 
do  something  else  with  their  evenings  in  July  than  spend  them 
in  listening  to  stuffy  lectures.  I  shall  go  to  the  Lakes.  But  there 
are  a  few  engagements  still  ahead,  and  —  I  confess  I  am  more  rest- 
less than  I  used  to  be.    The  night  conieth  when  no  man  can  work." 

They  fell  into  a  certain  amount  of  discursive  talk  —  of  the  politi- 
cal situation,  working-class  opinion,  and  the  rest.  Raeburn  had 
been  alive  now  for  some  time  to  a  curious  change  of  balance  in 
his  friend's  mind.  Hallin's  buoyant  youth  had  concerned  itself 
almost  entirely  with  positive  crusades  and  enthusiasms.  Of  late 
he  seemed  rather  to  have  passed  into  a  period  of  negations,  of 
strong  opposition  to  certain  current  isms  and  faiths ;  and  the 
happy  boyish  tone  of  earlier  years  had  become  the  "  stormy  note 
of  men  contention-tost,"  which  belongs,  indeed,  as  truly  to  such  a 
character  as  the  joy  of  young  ideals. 

He  had  always  been  to  some  extent  divided  from  Raeburn 
and  others  of  his  early  friends  by  his  passionate  democracy  —  his 
belief  in,  and  trust  of,  the  multitude.  For  Hallin,  the  divine 
originating  life  was  realised  and  manifested  through  the  common 
humanity  and  its  struggle,  as  a  whole ;  for  Raebiirn,  only  in  the 
best  of  it,  morally  or  intellectually ;  the  rest  remaining  an  inscru- 
table problem,  which  did  not,  indeed,  prevent  faith,  but  hung  upon 
it  like  a  dead  weight.  Such  divisions,  however,  are  among  the 
common  divisions  of  thinking  men,  and  had  never  interfered  with 
the  friendship  of  these  two  in  the  least. 

But  the  developing  alienation  between  Hallin  and  hundreds  of 
his  working-men  friends  was  of  an  infinitely  keener  and  sorer 
kind.  Since  he  had  begun  his  lecturing  and  propagandist  life, 
Socialist  ideas  of  all  kinds  had  made  great  way  in  England.  And, 
on  the  whole,  as  the  prevailing  type  of  them  grew  stronger,  Hallin's 
sympathy  with  them  had  grown  weaker  and  weaker.  Property  to 
him  meant  "  self-realisation  " ;  and  the  abuse  of  property  was  no 
more  just  ground  for  a  crusade  which  logically 'aimed  at  doing  away 
with  it,  than  the  abuse  of  other  human  powers  or  instincts  would 
make  it  reasonable  to  try  and  do  away  with  —  say  love,  or  religion. 


404  MARCELLA  book  hi 

To  give  property,  and  therewith  the  fuller  human  opportunity, 
to  those  that  have  none,  was  the  inmost  desire  of  his  life.  And 
not  merely  common  property  —  though  like  all  true  soldiers  of 
the  human  cause  he  believed  that  common  property  will  be  in 
the  future  enormously  extended  —  but  in  the  first  place,  and 
above  all,  to  distribute  the  discipline  and  the  trust  of  personal 
and  private  possession  among  an  infinitely  greater  number  of 
hands  than  possess  them  already.  And  that  not  for  wealth's 
sake  —  though  a  more  equal  distribution  of  property  and  there- 
with of  capacity,  must  inevitably  tend  to  wealth — but  for  the 
soul's  sake,  and  for  the  sake  of  that  continuous  appropriation  by 
the  race  of  its  moral  and  spiritual  heritage. 

How  is  it  to  be  done  ?  Hallin,  like  many  others,  would  have 
answered  —  "  For  England  —  mainly  by  a  fresh  distribution  of  the 
land."  Not,  of  course,  by  violence  —  which  only  means  the  worst 
form  of  waste  known  to  history — but  by  the  continuous  pressure 
of  an  emancipating  legislation,  relieving  land  from  shackles  long 
since  struck  off  other  kinds  of  property  —  by  the  assertion,  within 
a  certain  limited  range,  of  communal  initiative  and  control  —  and 
above  all  by  the  continuous  private  effort  in  all  sorts  of  ways  and 
spheres  of  "  men  of  good  will."  For  all  sweeping  uniform  schemes 
he  had  the  natural  contempt  of  the  student  —  or  the  moralist. 
To  imagine  that  by  nationalising  sixty  annual  millions  of  rent 
for  instatice  you  could  make  England  a  city  of  God,  w-as  not  only 
a  vain  dream,  but  a  belittling  of  England's  history  and  England's 
task.  A  nation  is  not  saved  so  cheaply!  —  and  to  see  those  ener- 
gies turned  to  land  nationalisation  or  the  scheming  of  a  Collectivist 
millennium,  which  might  have  gone  to  the  housing,  educating, 
and  refining  of  English  men,  women,  and  children  of  to-day,  to 
moralising  the  employer's  view  of  his  profit,  and  the  landlord's 
conception  of  his  estate  — filled  him  with  a  growing  despair. 

The  relation  of  such  a  habit  of  life  and  mind  to  the  Collectivist 
and  Socialist  ideas  now  coming  to  the  front  in  England,  as  in 
every  other  European  country,  is  obvious  enough.  To  Hallin  the 
social  life,  the  community,  was  everything  —  yet  to  be  a  "  Social- 
ist "  seemed  to  him  more  and  more  to  be  a  traitor !  He  would 
have  built  his  state  on  the  pm-ified  will  of  the  individual  man, 
and  could  conceive  no  other  foundation  for  a  state  worth  having. 
But  for  purification  there  must  be  effort,  and  for  effort  there  must 
be  freedom.  Socialism,  as  he  read  it,  despised  and  decried  free- 
dom, and  placed  the  good  of  man  wholly  in  certain  external  condi- 
tions. It  was  aiming  at  a  state  of  things  under  which  the  joys 
and  pains,  the  teaching  and  the  risks  of  true  possession,  were  to 
be  for  ever  shut  off  from  the  poor  human  will,  which  yet,  accord- 
ing to  him,  could  never  do  without  them,  if  man  was  to  be  man. 


rnAi'.  X  MARCELLA  405 

So  that  he  saw  it  all  sub  specie  celern'datis,  as  a  matter  not  of 
economic  theory,  but  rather  of  religion.  Raeburn,  as  they  talked, 
shrank  in  dismay  from  the  burning  intensity  of  mood  underlying 
his  controlled  speech.  lie  spoke,  for  instance,  of  Bennett's  con- 
version to  Harry  Wharton's  proposed  bill,  or  of  the  land  national- 
ising scheme  he  was  spending  all  his  slender  stores  of  breath  and 
strength  in  attacking,  not  with  anger  or  contempt,  but  with  a 
passionate  sorrow  which  seemed  to  Raeburn  preposterous  !  intoler- 
able ! —  to  be  exhausting  in  him  the  very  springs  and  sources  of 
a  too  precarious  life.  There  rose  in  Aldous  at  last  an  indignant 
protest  which  yet  could  hardly  find  itself  words.  What  help 
to  have  softened  the  edge  and  fury  of  religious  war,  only  to  dis- 
cover new  antagonisms  of  opinion  as  capable  of  devastating  heart 
and  affections  as  any  homoousion  of  old?  Had  they  not  already 
cost  him  love  ?  Were  they  also,  in  another  fashion,  to  cost  him 
his  friend? 

"Ah,  dear  old  fellow  —  enough!"  said  Hallia  at  last — "take 
me  back  to  Italy!  You  have  told  me  so  Utile  —  such  a  nig- 
gardly little !  " 

"I  told  you  that  we  went  and  I  came  back  in  a  water-spout," 
said  Aldous;  "the  first  rain  in  Northern  Italy  for  four  months  — 
woi'se  luck!  'Rain  at  Reggio,  rain  at  Panua. —  At  Lodi  rain, 
Piacenza  rain !  '  —  that  might  about  stand  for  my  diary,  except 
for  one  radiant  day  when  my  aunt,  Betty  Macdonald,  and  I 
descended  on  Milan,  and  climbed  the  Duomo." 

"  Did  Miss  Betty  amuse  you  ?  " 

Aldous  laughed. 

"  Well,  at  least  she  varied  the  programme.  The  greater  part  of 
our  day  in  Milan  Aunt  Neta  and  I  spent  in  rushing  after  her  like 
its  tail  after  a  kite.  First  of  all,  she  left  us  in  the  Duomo  Square, 
running  like  a  deer,  and  presently,  to  Aunt  Xeta's  horror,  we  dis- 
covered that  she  was  pursuing  a  young  Italian  officer  in  a  blue 
cloak.  When  we  came  up  with  the  pair  she  was  enquiring,  in  her 
best  Italian,  where  the  '  Signor '  got  his  cloak,  because  positively 
she  must  have  one  like  it,  and  he,  cap  in  hand,  was  explaining  to 
the  Signorina  that  if  she  would  but  follow  him  round  the  corner 
to  his  military  tailor's,  she  could  be  supplied  on  the  spot.  So 
there  we  all  went,  Miss  Betty  insisting.  You  can  imagine  Aunt 
Neta.  She  bought  a  small  shipload  of  stuff  —  and  then  positively 
skipped  for  joy  in  the  street  outside  —  the  amazed  officer  looking 
on.  And  as  for  her  career  over  the  roof  of  the  Duomo  —  the  agi- 
tation of  it  nearly  brought  my  aunt  to  destruction  —  and  even  I 
heaved  a  sigh  of  relief  when  I  got  tliem  both  down  safe." 

"Is  the  creatui'e  all  tricks?"  said  Ilallin,  with  a  smile.     "As 


406  MARCELLA  book  hi 

you  talk  of  her  to  me  I  get  the  notion  of  a  little  monkey  just  cut 
loose  from  a  barrel  organ." 

"  Oh  !  but  the  monkey  has  so  much  heart,"  said  Aldous,  laugh- 
ing again,  as  every  one  was  apt  to  laugh  who  talked  about  Betty 
Macdonald,  "  and  it  makes  friends  with  every  sick  and  sorry  creat- 
ure it  comes  across,  especially  with  old  maids!  It  amounts  to 
genius,  Betty's  way  with  old  maids.  You  should  see  her  in  the 
middle  of  them  in  the  hotel  salon  at  night  —  a  perfect  ring 
of  them  —  and  the  men  outside,  totally  neglected,  and  out  of 
temper.  I  have  never  seen  Betty  yet  in  a  room  with  somebody 
she  thought  ill  at  ease,  or  put  in  the  shade — a  governess,  or  a 
schoolgirl,  or  a  lumpish  boy  —  that  she  did  not  devote  herself  to 
that  somebody.  It  is  a  pretty  instinct;  I  have  often  wondered 
whether  it  is  nature  or  art." 

He  fell  silent,  still  smiling.  Hallin  watched  him  closely.  Per- 
haps the  thought  which  had  risen  in  his  mind  revealed  itself  by 
some  subtle  sign  or  other  to  Aldous.  For  suddenly  Raeburn's 
expression  changed;  the  over-strenuous,  harassed  look,  which  of 
late  had  somewhat  takeir  the  place  of  his  old  j)hilosopher's  quiet, 
reappeared. 

"  I  did  not  tell  you,  Hallin,"  he  began,  in  a  low  voice,  raising 
his  eyes  to  his  friend,  "  that  I  had  seen  her  again." 

Hallin  paused  a  moment.     Then  he  said : 

"  No.  I  knew  she  went  to  the  House  to  hear  Wharton's  speech, 
and  that  she  dined  there.  I  supposed  she  might  just  have  come 
across  you  —  but  she  said  nothing." 

"  Of  course,  I  had  no  idea,"  said  Aldous ;  "  suddenly  Lady 
"Winterbourne  and  I  came  across  her  on  the  terrace.  Then  I  saw 
she  was  with  that  man's  party.  She  spoke  to  me  afterwards  —  I 
believe  now  —  she  meant  to  be  kind "  —  his  voice  showed  the 
difficulty  he  had  in  speaking  at  all  —  "  but  I  saw  him  coming  up 
to  talk  to  her.  I  am  ashamed  to  think  of  my  own  manner,  but  I 
could  not  help  myself." 

His  face  and  eye  took,  as  he  spoke,  a  peculiar  vividness  and 
glow.  Raeburn  had  not  for  months  mentioned  to  him  the  name 
of  Marcella  Boyce,  but  Hallin  had  all  along  held  two  faiths  about 
the  matter :  first,  that  Aldous  was  still  possessed  by  a  passion 
which  had  become  part  of  his  life ;  secondly,  that  the  events  of 
the  preceding  year  had  produced  in  him  an  exceedingly  bitter  sense 
of  ill-usage,  of  a  type  which  Hallin  had  not  perhaps  expected. 

"Did  you  see  anything  to  make  you  suppose,"  he  asked  quietly, 
after  a  pause,  "that  she  is  going  to  marry  him?" 

"  No  —  no,"  Aldous  repeated  slowly ;  "  but  she  is  clearly  on 
friendly,  perhaps  intimate,  terms  with  him.  And  just  now,  of 
covu'se,  she  is  more  likely  to  be  influenced  by  him  than  ever.     He 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  407 

made  a  great  success  —  of  a  kind  —  in  the  House  a  fortnight  ago. 
People  seem  to  think  he  may  come  rapidly  to  the  front." 

"  So  I  understand.  I  don't  believe  it.  The  jealousies  that 
divide  that  group  are  too  unmanageable.  If  he  were  a  Parnell ! 
But  he  lacks  just  the  qualities  that  matter  —  the  reticence,  the 
power  of  holding  himself  aloof  from  irrelevant  things  and  inter- 
ests, the  hard  self-concentration." 

Aldous  raised  his  shoulders. 

"I  don't  imagine  there  is  any  lack  of  that!  But  certainly  he 
holds  himself  aloof  from  nothing  and  nobody !  I  hear  of  him 
everywhere." 

"  What !  —  among  the  smart  people  ?  " 

Aldous  nodded. 

"  A  change  of  policy  by  all  accounts,"  said  Hallin,  musing. 
"  He  must  do  it  with  intention.  He  is  not  the  man  to  let  himself 
be  be-Capua-ed  all  at  once." 

"  Oh  dear,  no  !  "  said  Aldous,  drily.  "  He  does  it  with  intention. 
Nobody  supposes  him  to  be  the  mere  toady.  All  the  same  I  think 
he  may  very  well  overrate  the  importance  of  the  class  he  is  trying 
to  make  use  of,  and  its  influence.  Have  you  been  following  the 
strike  '  leaders  '  in  the  Clarion  ?  " 

"  No  !  "  cried  Hallin,  flushing.  "  I  would  not  read  them  for  the 
world  !     I  might  not  be  able  to  go  on  giving  to  the  strike." 

Aldous  fell  silent,  and  Plallin  presently  saw  that  his  mind  had 
harked  back  to  the  one  subject  that  really  held  the  depths  of  it. 
The  truest  friendship,  Hallin  believed,  would  be  never  to  speak  to 
him  of  Marcella  Boyce  —  never  to  encourage  him  to  dwell  upon 
her,  or  upon  anything  connected  with  her.  But  his  yearning, 
sympathetic  instinct  would  not  let  him  follow  his  own  conviction. 

"  Miss  Boyce,  you  know,  has  been  here  two  or  three  times  while 
you  have  been  away,"  he  said  quickly,  as  he  got  up  to  post  a 
letter. 

Aldous  hesitated ;  tlien  he  said  — 

"  Do  you  gather  that  her  nursing  life  satisfies  her  ?  " 

Hallin  made  a  little  face. 

"  Since  when  has  she  become  a  person  likely  to  be  '  satisfied ' 
with  anything?  She  devotes  to  it  a  splendid  and  wonderful 
energy.  When  she  comes  here  I  admire  her  with  all  my  heart, 
and  pity  her  so  much  that  I  could  cry  over  her  !  " 

Aldous  started. 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  he  said,  as  he  too  rose  and  laid 
his  hand  on  Hallin 's  for  a  moment.  "  But  don't  tell  me  I  It's 
best  for  me  not  to  talk  of  her.  If  she  were  associated  in  my  mind 
with  any  other  man  than  Wharton,  I  think  somehow  I  could 
thi'ow  the  whole  thing  off.     But  this  —  this  —  "     He  broke  off; 


408  MAKCELLA  kook  hi 

then  resumed,  while  he  pretended  to  look  for  a  parcel  he  had 
brought  with  him,  by  way  of  covering  an  agitation  he  could  not 
suppress.  "  A  person  you  and  I  know  said  to  me  the  other  day, 
'  It  may  sound  unromautic,  but  I  could  never  think  of  a  woman 
who  had  thrown  me  over  except  ^oith  ill-will.'  The  word  astonished 
lue,  but  sometimes  I  understand  it.  I  find  myself  full  of  anger  to 
the  most  futile,  the  most  ridiculous  degree  !  " 

He  drew  himself  up  nervously,  already  scorning  his  own  ab- 
surdity, his  own  breach  of  reticence.  Hallin  laid  his  hands  on 
the  taller  man's  shoulders,  and  there  was  a  short  pause. 

"  Never  mind,  old  fellow,"  said  Hallin,  simply,  at  last,  as  his 
hands  dropped;  "let's  go  and  do  our  work.  What  is  it  you're 
after  ?  —  I  forget." 

Aldous  found  his  packet  and  his  hat,  explaining  himself  again, 
meanwhile,  in  his  usual  voice.  He  had  dropped  in  on  Hallin  for 
a  morning  visit,  meaning  to  spend  some  hours  before  the  House 
met  in  the  investigation  of  some  small  workshops  in  the  neigh- 
bom'hood  of  Drury  Lane.  The  Home  Office  had  been  called  upon 
for  increased  inspection  and  regulation ;  there  had  been  a  great 
conflict  of  evidence,  and  Aldous  had  finally  resolved  in  his  stu- 
dent's way  to  see  for  himself  the  state  of  things  in  two  or  three 
selected  streets. 

It  was  a  matter  on  which  Hallin  was  also  well-informed,  and 
felt  strongly.  They  stayed  talking  about  it  a  few  minutes,  Hallin 
eagerly  directing  Raeburn's  attention  to  the  two  or  three  points 
where  he  thought  the  Government  could  really  do  good. 

Then  Raeburn  turned  to  go. 

"I  shall  come  and  drag  you  out  to-morrow  afternoon,"  he  said, 
as  he  opened  the  door. 

"You  needn't,"  said  Hallin,  with  a  smile;  "in  fact,  don't;  I 
shall  have  my  jaunt." 

Whereby  Aldous  understood  that  he  would  be  engaged  in  his 
common  Saturday  practice  of  taking  out  a  batch  of  elder  boys  or 
girls  from  one  or  other  of  the  schools  of  which  he  was  manager, 
for  a  walk  or  to  see  some  sight. 

"  If  it's  your  boys,"  he  said,  protesting,  "  you're  not  fit  for  it. 
Hand  them  over  to  me." 

"  Nothing  of  the  sort,"  said  Hallin,  gaily,  and  turned  him  out  of 
the  room. 

Raeburn  found  the  walk  from  Hallin's  Bloomsbury  quarters  to 
Drury  Lane  hot  and  airless.  The  planes  were  already  drooping 
and  yellowing  in  the  squares,  the  streets  were  at  their  closest  and 
dirtiest,  and  the  traffic  of  Holborn  and  its  approaches  had  never 
seemed  to  him  more  bewildering  in  its  roar  and  volume.     July  was 


en  A  p.   X  MARCELLA  409 

in.  and  all  freshness  had  already  disappeared  from  the  loo  short 
London  summer. 

For  Raeburn  on  this  particular  afternoon  there  was  a  curious 
forlornness  in  the  dry  and  tainted  air.  His  slack  mood  found  no 
l>racing  in  the  sun  or  the  breeze.  Everything  was  or  seemed  dis- 
tasteful to  a  mind  out  of  tune  —  whether  this  work  he  was  upon, 
which  only  yesterday  had  interested  him  considerably,  or  his  Par- 
liamentary occuj^ations,  or  some  tiresome  estate  business  which 
would  have  to  be  looked  into  when  he  got  home.  Pie  was  op- 
pressed, too,  by  the  last  news  of  his  grandfather.  The  certainty 
that  this  dear  and  honoured  life,  with  which  his  own  had  been  so 
closely  intertwined  since  his  boyhood,  was  drawing  to  its  close 
weighed  upon  him  now  heavily  and  constantly.  The  loss  itself 
would  take  from  him  an  object  on  which  affection  —  checked  and 
thwarted  elsewhere — was  still  free  to  spend  itself  in  ways  pecul- 
iarly noble  and  tender ;  and  as  for  those  other  changes  to  ■which 
the  first  great  change  must  lead  —  his  transference  to  the  Upper 
House,  and  the  extension  for  himself  of  all  the  ceremonial  side  of 
life  —  he  looked  forward  to  them  with  an  intense  and  resentful 
repugnance,  as  to  aggravations,  perversely  thrust  on  him  from 
without,  of  a  great  and  necessary  grief.  Few  men  believed  less 
happily  in  democracy  than  Aldous  Raeburn ;  on  the  other  hand, 
few  men  felt  a  more  steady  distaste  for  certain  kinds  of  inequality. 

He  was  to  meet  a  young  inspector  at  the  corner  of  Little  Queen 
Street,  and  they  were  to  visit  together  a  series  of  small  brush- 
drawing  and  box-making  workshops  in  the  ])i-ury  Lane  district,  to 
which  the  attention  of  the  Department  had  lately  been  specially 
drawn.  Aldous  had  no  sooner  crossed  Holborn  than  he  saw  his 
man  waiting  for  him,  a  tall  strip  of  a  fellow,  with  a  dark  bearded 
face,  and  a  manner  which  shyness  had  made  a  trifle  morose. 
Aldous,  however,  Ivuew  him  to  be  not  only  a  capital  worker,  but  a 
man  of  parts,  and  had  got  much  information  and  some  ideas  out 
of  him  already.  Mr.  Peabody  gave  the  under-secretary  a  slight 
preoccupied  smile  in  return  for  his  friendly  greeting,  and  the  two 
walked  on  together  talking. 

The  inspector  announced  that  he  proposed  to  take  his  companion 
first  of  all  to  a  street  behind  Drury  Lane,  of  which  many  of  the 
houses  were  already  marked  for  demolition — a  "black  street," 
bearing  a  peculiarly  vile  reputation  in  the  neighbourhood.  It  con- 
tained on  the  whole  the  worst  of  the  small  workshops  which  he 
desired  to  bring  to  Raeburn's  notice,  besides  a  variety  of  other 
horrors,  social  and  sanitary. 

After  ten  minutes'  walking  they  turned  into  the  street.  With 
its  condemned  hoi;ses,  many  of  them  shored  up  and  windowless, 
its  ifarrow  roadway  strewn  with  costers'  refuse  —  it  was  largely 


410  MAECELLA  book  hi 

inhabited  by  costers  frequenting  Covent  Garden  Market  —  its  filthy 
gutters  and  broken  pavements,  it  touched,  indeed,  a  depth  of  sinis- 
ter squalor  beyond  most  of  its  fellows.  The  air  was  heavy  with 
odours  which,  in  this  July  heat,  seemed  to  bear  with  them  the 
inmost  essences  of  things  sickening  and  decaying;  and  the  chil- 
dren, squatting  or  playing  amid  the  garbage  of  the  street,  were 
fui-ther  than  most  of  their  kind  from  any  tolerable  human  type. 

A  policeman  was  stationed  near  the  entrance  of  the  street. 
After  they  had  passed  him,  Mr.  Peabody  ran  back  and  said  a 
word  in  his  ear. 

"  I  gave  him  your  name,"  he  said  briefly,  in  answer  to  Raeburn's 
interrogative  look,  when  he  returned,  "  and  told  him  what  we  were 
after.  The  street  is  not  quite  as  bad  as  it  was ;  and  there  are  little 
oases  of  respectability  in  it  you  would  never  expect.  But  there  is 
plenty  of  the  worst  thieving  and  brutality  left  in  it  still.  Of  course, 
now  you  see  it  at  its  dull  moment.  To-night  the  place  will  swarm 
with  barrows  and  stalls,  all  the  people  will  be  in  the  street,  and 
after  dark  it  will  be  as  near  pandemonium  as  may  be.  I  happen 
to  know  the  School  Board  visitor  of  these  parts ;  and  a  City  Mis- 
sionary,  too,  who  is  afraid  of  nothing." 

And  standing  still  a  moment,  pointing  imperceptibly  to  right 
and  left,  he  began  in  his  shy,  monotonous  voice  to  run  through 
the  inhabitants  of  some  of  the  houses  and  a  few  typical  histories. 
This  group  was  mainly  peopled  by  women  of  the  very  lowest  class 
and  their  "  bullies"  — that  is  to  say,  the  men  who  aided  them  in 
plundering,  sometimes  in  murdering,  the  stranger  who  fell  into 
their  claws ;  in  that  house  a  woman  had  been  slowly  done  to  death 
by  her  husband  and  his  brutal  brothers  under  every  circumstance 
of  tragic  horror ;  in  the  next  a  case  of  flagrant  and  revolting 
cruelty  to  a  pair  of  infant  children  had  just  been  brought  to  light. 
In  addition  to  its  vice  and  its  thievery,  the  wretched  place  was,  of 
course,  steeped  in  drink.  There  were  gin-palaces  at  all  the  cor- 
ners ;  the  women  drank,  in  proportion  to  their  resources,  as  badly 
as  the  men,  and  the  children  were  fed  with  the  stuff  in  infancy, 
and  began  for  themselves  as  early  as  they  could  beg  or  steal  a 
copper  of  their  own. 

When  the  dismal  catalogue  was  done,  they  moved  on  towards 
the  further  end  of  the  street,  and  a  house  on  the  right-hand  side. 
Behind  the  veil  of  his  official  manner  Aldous's  shrinking  sense 
took  all  it  saw  and  heard  as  fresh  food  for  a  darkness  and  de- 
spondency of  soul  already  great  enough.  But  his  companion  — 
a  young  enthusiast,  secretly  very  critical  of  "  big-wigs  "  —  was 
conscious  only  of  the  trained  man  of  affairs,  courteous,  methodical, 
and  well-informed,  putting  a  series  of  preliminarj^  questions  with 
unusual  point  and  rapidity. 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  411 

Suddenly,  under  the  infliTence  of  a  common  impression,  both 
men  stood  still  and  looked  about  them.  There  was  a  stir  in  the 
street.  Windows  had  been  thrown  open,  and  scores  of  heads  were 
looking  out.  People  emerged  from  all  quarters,  seemed  to  spring 
from  the  ground  or  drop  from  the  skies,  and  in  a  few  seconds,  as 
it  were,  the  street,  so  dead-alive  before,  was  full  of  a  running  and 
shouting  crowd. 

"  It's  a  fight !  "  said  Peabody,  as  the  crowd  came  up  with  them. 
''  Listen ! " 

Shrieks  —  of  the  most  ghastly  and  piercing  note,  rang  through 
the  air.     The  men  and  M'omen  who  rushed  past  the  two  strangers 

—  hustling  them,  yet  too  excited  to  notice  them  —  were  all  making 
for  a  house  some  ten  or  twelve  yards  in  front  of  them,  to  their 
left.     Aldous  had  turned  white. 

"  It  is  a  woman  !  "  he  said,  after  an  instant's  listening,  "  and  it 
sounds  like  murder.     You  go  back  for  that  policeman  !  " 

And  without  another  word  he  threw  himself  on  the  crowd, 
forcing  his  way  through  it  by  the  help  of  arms  and  shoulders 
which,  in  years  gone  by,  had  done  good  service  for  the  Trinity 
Eight.  Drink-sodden  men  and  screaming  women  gave  way  befoi-e 
him.  He  found  himself  at  the  door  of  the  house,  hammering 
upon  it  with  two  or  three  other  men  who  were  there  before  him. 
The  noise  from  within  was  appalling  —  cries,  gi'oans,  uproar —  all 
the  sounds  of  a  deadly  struggle  proceeding  apparently  on  the 
second  floor  of  the  house.  Then  came  a  heavy  fall  —  then  the 
sound  of  a  voice,  different  in  quality  and  accent  from  any  that 
had  gone  before,  crying  piteously  and  as  though  in  exhaustion  — 
"  Help ! " 

Almost  at  the  same  moment  the  door  which  Aldous  and  his  com- 
panions were  trying  to  force  was  burst  open  from  within,  and 
three  men  seemed  to  be  shot  out  from  the  dark  passage  inside 

—  two  wrestling  with  the  third,  a  wild  beast  in  human  shape, 
maddened  apparently  with  drink,  and  splaslied  with  blood. 

"  Ee's  done  for  her ! "  shouted  one  of  the  captors ;  "  an'  for  the 
Sister  too !  " 

"The  Sister!"  shrieked  a  woman  behind  Aldous  —  "it's  the 
nuss  he  means !  I  sor  her  go  in  when  I  wor  at  my  window  half 
an  hour  ago.  Oh!  yer  blackguard,  you!"  —  and  she  would  have 
fallen  upon  the  wretch,  in  a  frenzy,  had  not  the  bystanders  caught 
hold  of  her. 

"  Stand  back !  "  cried  a  policeman.  Three  of  them  had  come 
up  at  Peabody's  call.  The  man  was  instantly  secured,  and  the 
crowd  pushed  back. 

Aldous  was  already  upstairs. 

"  Which  room  ? "    he  asked  of  a  group  of  women  crying  and 


412  MARCELLA  book  hi 

cowering  on  the  first  landing  —  for  all  sounds  from  above  had 
ceased. 

"  Third  floor  front,"  cried  one  of  them.  "  We  all  of  us  begged 
and  implored  of  that  young  person,  sir,  not  to  go  a-near  him ! 
Didn't  we,  Betsy?  —  didn't  we,  Doll?" 

Aldous  ran  up. 

On  the  third  floor,  the  door  of  the  front  room  was  open.  A 
woman  lay  on  the  ground,  apparently  beaten  to  death. 

By  her  side,  torn,  dishevelled,  and  gasping,  knelt  Marcella  Boyce. 
Two  or  three  other  women  were  standing  by  in  helpless  terror  and 
curiosity.  Marcella  was  bending  over  the  bleeding  victim  before 
her.  Her  own  left  arm  hung  as  though  disabled  by  her  side ;  but 
with  the  right  hand  she  was  doing  her  best  to  staunch  some  of  the 
bleeding  from  the  head.  Her  bag  stood  open  beside  her,  and  one 
of  the  chattering  women  w^as  handing  her  what  she  asked  for. 
The  sight  stamped  itself  in  lines  of  horror  on  Raeburn's  heart. 

In  such  an  exaltation  of  nerve  she  could  be  surprised  at  nothing. 
When  she  saw  Raeburn  enter  the  room,  she  did  not  even  start. 

"I  think,"  she  said,  as  he  stooped  down  to  her  —  speaking  with 
pauses,  as  though  to  get  her  breath  —  "  he  has  —  killed  her.  But 
there  —  is  a  chance.     Are  the  —  police  there  —  and  a  stretcher  ?  " 

Two  constables  entered  as  she  spoke,  and  the  first  of  them 
instantly  sent  his  companion  back  for  a  stretcher.  Then,  notic- 
ing Marcella's  nursing  dress  and  cloak,  he  came  up  to  her 
respectfully. 

"  Did  you  see  it,  miss?" 

"I  —  I  tried  to  separate  them,"  she  replied,  still  speaking  with 
the  same  difficulty,  while  she  silently  motioned  to  Aldous,  who 
was  on  the  other  side  of  the  unconscious  and  apparently  dying 
woman,  to  help  her  with  the  bandage  she  was  applying.  "But 
he  was  —  such  a  great  —  powerful  brute." 

Aldous,  hating  the  clumsiness  of  his  man's  fingers,  knelt  down  and 
tried  to  help  her.     Her  trembling  hand  touched,  mingled  with  his. 

"  I  was  downstairs,"  she  went  on,  while  the  constable  took  out 
his  note-book,  "  attending  a  child  —  that's  ill  —  when  I  heard  the 
screams.  They  were  on  the  landing;  he  had  turned  her  oiit  of 
the  room  —  then  rushed  after  her  —  I  tliink  —  to  throw  her  down- 
stairs—  I  stopped  that.  Then  he  took  up  something  —  oh!  there 
it  is ! "  She  shuddered,  pointing  to  a  broken  piece  of  a  chair 
which  lay  on  the  floor.  "He  was  quite  mad  with  drink  —  I 
coiddn't  —  do  much." 

Her  voice  slipped  into  a  weak,  piteous  note. 

"Isn't  your  arm  hurt?"  said  Aldous,  pointing  to  it. 

"  It's  not  broken  —  it's  wrenched  ;  I  can't  use  it.  There  —  that's 
all  we  can  do  —  till  she  gets  —  to  hospital." 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  413 

Theu  she  stood  up,  pale  and  staggering,  and  asked  the  police- 
man if  he  could  put  on  a  bandage.  The  man  had  got  his  ambu- 
lance certificate,  and  was  proud  to  say  that  he  could.  She  took 
a  roll  out  of  her  bag,  and  quietly  pointed  to  her  arm.  He  did  his 
best,  not  without  skill,  and  the  deep  line  of  pain  furrowing  the 
centre  of  the  brow  i-elaxed  a  little.  Then  she  sank  down  on  the 
floor  again  beside  her  patient,  gazing  at  the  woman's  marred 
face  —  indescribably  patient  in  its  deep  unconsciousness  —  at  tlie 
gnarled  and  bloodstained  hands,  with  their  wedding-ring ;  at  the 
thin  locks  of  torn  grey  hair  —  with  tears  that  ran  unheeded  down 
her  cheeks,  in  a  passion  of  anguished  pity,  which  touched  a  chord 
of  memory  in  Raeburn's  mind.  He  had  seen  her  look  so  once 
before  —  beside  Minta  Hurd,  on  the  day  of  Kurd's  capture. 

At  the  same  moment  he  saw  that  they  were  alone.  The  police- 
man had  cleared  the  room,  and  was  spending  the  few  minutes 
that  must  elapse  before  his  companion  returned  with  the  stretcher, 
in  taking  the  names  and  evidence  of  some  of  the  inmates  of  the 
house,  on  the  stairs  outside. 

"  You  can't  do  anything  more,"  said  Aldous,  gently,  bending 
over  her.  "  Won't  you  let  me  take  you  home  ?  —  you  want  it 
sorely.  The  police  are  trained  to  these  things,  and  I  have  a  friend 
here  who  will  help.  They  will  remove  her  with  eveiy  care — he 
will  see  to  it." 

Then  for  the  first  time  her  absorption  gave  way.  She  remem- 
bered who  he  was  —  where  they  were  —  how  they  had  last  met. 
And  with  the  remembrance  came  an  extraordinary  leap  of  joy, 
flashing  through  pain  and  faintness.  She  had  the  childish  feeling 
that  he  could  not  look  unkindly  at  her  any  more  —  after  this! 
"When  at  the  White  House  she  had  got  herself  into  disgrace,  and 
could  not  bring  her  pride  to  ask  pardon,  she  would  silently  set  up 
a  headache  or  a  cut  finger  that  she  might  be  pitied,  and  so,  per- 
force, forgiven.  The  same  tacit  thought  was  in  her  mind  now. 
No !  —  after  this  he  must  be  friends  with  her. 

"I  will  just  help  to  get  her  downstairs,"  she  said,  but  with  a 
quivering,  appealing  accent  —  and  so  they  fell  silent. 

Aldous  looked  round  the  room  —  at  the  miserable  filthy  garret 
with  its  begrimed  and  peeling  wall-paper,  its  two  or  three  broken 
chairs,  its  heap  of  rags  across  two  boxes  that  served  for  a  bed,  its 
empty  gin-bottles  here  and  there  —  all  the  familiar,  one  might 
almost  say  conventionalised,  signs  of  human  ruin  and  damnation 
— then  at  this  breathing  death  between  himself  and  her.  Perhaps 
his  strongest  feeling  was  one  of  fierce  and  natural  protest  against 
circumstance  —  against  her  mother !  —  against  a  reckless  philan- 
thropy that  could  thus  throw  the  finest  and.  fragilest  things  of  a 
poorly-f  ui'uished  world  into  such  a  hopeless  struggle  with  devildom. 


414  MARCELLA  book  hi 

"  I  have  been  here  several  times  before,"  she  said  presently,  in  a 
faint  voice,  "  and  there  has  never  been  any  trouble.  By  day  the 
street  is  not  much  worse  than  others  —  though,  of  course,  it  has  a 
bad  name.  There  is  a  little  boy  on  the  next  floor  very  ill  with 
typhoid.  Many  of  the  women  in  the  house  are  very  good  to  him 
and  his  mother.  This  poor  thing  —  used  to  come  in  and  out  — 
when  I  was  nursing  him  —  Oh,  I  wish  —  I  loish  they  would  come  !" 
she  broke  off  in  impatience,  looking  at  the  deathly  form  —  "  every 
moment  is  of  importance !  " 

As  Aldous  went  to  the  door  to  see  if  the  stretcher  was  in  sight, 
it  opened,  and  the  police  came  in.  Marcella,  herself  helpless, 
directed  the  lifting  of  the  bloodstained  head ;  the  police  obeyed 
her  with  care  and  skill.  Then  Raeburn  assisted  in  the  carrying 
downstairs,  and  presently  the  police  with  their  burden,  and  accom- 
panied apparently  by  the  whole  street,  were  on  their  way  to  the 
nearest  hospital. 

Then  Aldous,  to  his  despair  and  wrath,  saw  that  an  inspector  of 
police,  who  had  just  come  up,  was  talking  to  Marcella,  no  doubt 
instructing  her  as  to  how  and  where  she  was  to  give  her  evidence. 
She  was  leaning  against  the  passage  wall,  supporting  her  injured 
arm  with,  her  hand,  and  seemed  to  him  on  the  point  of  fainting. 

"  Get  a  cab  at  once,  will  you ! "  he  said  peremptorily  to  Peabody ; 
then  going  up  to  the  inspector  he  drew  him  forward.  They 
exchanged  a  few  words,  the  inspector  lifted  his  cap,  and  Aldous 
went  back  to  Marcella. 

"  There  is  a  cab  here,"  he  said  to  her.  "  Come,  please,  directly. 
They  will  not  trouble  you  any  more  for  the  present." 

He  led  her  out  through  the  still  lingering  crowd  and  put  her 
into  the  cab.  As  they  drove  along,  he  felt  every  jolt  and  roughness 
of  the  street  as  though  he  were  himself  in  anguish.  She  was  some 
time  befoi'e  she  recovered  the  jar  of  pain  caused  her  by  the  act  of 
getting  into  the  cab.  Her  breath  came  fast,  and  he  could  see  that 
she  was  trying  hard  to  control  herself  and  not  to  faint. 

He,  too,  restrained  himself  so  far  as  not  to  talk  to  her.  But  the 
exasperation,  the  revolt  within,  was  in  truth  growing  unmanage- 
ably. Was  this  what  her  new  career  —  her  enthusiasms  —  meant, 
or  might  mean  !  Twenty-three !  —  in  the  prime  of  youth,  of 
charm !  Horrible,  unpardonable  waste  1  He  could  not  bear  it, 
could  not  submit  himself  to  it. 

Oh!  let  her  marry  Wharton,  or  any  one  else,  so  long  as  it  were 
made  impossible  for  her  to  bruise  and  exhaust  her  young  bloom 
amid  such  scenes  —  such  gross  physical  abominations.  Amazing! 
—  how  meanly,  passionately  timorous  the  man  of  Raeburn's  type 
can  be  for  the  woman!  He  himself  may  be  morally  "ever  a 
fighter,"  and  feel  the  glow,  the  stern  joy  of  the  fight.     But  she !  — 


CHAP.  X  MARCELLA  415 

let  her  leave  the  human  brute  and  his  unsavoury  struggle  alone! 
It  cannot  be  borne  —  it  was  never  meant  —  that  she  should  dip  her 
delicate  wings,  of  her  own  free  will  at  least,  in  such  a  mire  of 
blood  and  tears.  It  was  the  feeling  that  had  possessed  him  when 
Mrs.  Boyce  told  him  of  the  visit  to  the  prison,  the  night  in  the 
cottage. 

In  lier  whirl  of  feverish  thought,  she  divined  him  very  closely. 
Presently,  as  he  watched  her  —  hating  the  man  for  driving  and 
the  cab  for  shaking —  he  saw  her  white  lips  suddenly  smile. 

"  I  know,"  she  said,  rousing  herself  to  look  at  him ;  "  you  think 
nursing  is  all  like  that !  " 

"  I  hope  not !  "  he  said,  with  effort,  trying  to  smile  too. 

"  I  never  saw  a  fight  before,"  she  said,  shutting  her  eyes  again. 
"  Nobody  is  ever  rude  to  us  —  I  often  pine  for  experiences  !  " 

How  like  her  old,  wild  tone !  His  rigid  look  softened  involun- 
tarily. 

"Well,  you  have  got  one  now,"  he  said,  bending  over  to  her. 
"  Does  your  arm  hurt  you  much  ?  " 

"  Yes,  —  but  I  can  bear  it.  What  vexes  me  is  that  I  shall  have 
to  give  up  work  for  a  bit.  —  Mr.  Raeburn !  " 

"  Yes."     His  heart  beat. 

"We  may  meet  often  — mayn't  we?  —  at  Lady  Winterbourne's 

—  or  in  the  country?  Couldn't  we  be  friends?  You  don't  know 
how  often  — "  She  turned  away  her  weary  head  a  moment  — 
gathered  strength  to  begin  again — "how  often  I  have  regretted 

—  last  year.  I  see  now  —  that  I  behaved  —  more  unkindly"  — 
her  voice  was  almost  a  whisper  —  "  than  I  thought  then.  But  it 
is  all  done  with  —  couldn't  we  just  be  good  friends  —  understand 
each  other,  perhaps,  better  than  we  ever  did?" 

She  kept  her  eyes  closed,  shaken  with  alternate  shame  and 
daring. 

As  for  him,  he  was  seized  with  overpowering  dumbness  and 
chill.  What  was  really  in  his  mind  was  the  terrace  —  was 
Wharton's  advancing  figm-e.  But  her  state  —  the  moment  —  co- 
erced him. 

"  We  could  not  be  anything  but  friends,"  he  said  gently,  but 
with  astonishing  difficulty ;  and  then  could  find  nothing  more  to 
say.  She  knew  his  reserve,  however,  and  would  not  this  time  be 
repelled. 

She  put  out  her  hand. 

"  No  !  "  she  said,  looking  at  it  and  withdrawing  it  with  a  shud- 
der ;  "  oh  no  !  " 

Then  suddenly  a  passion  of  tears  and  trembling  overcame  her. 
She  leant  against  the  side  of  the  cab,  struggling  in  vain  to  regain 
her  self-control,  gasping  incoherent  things  about  the  woman  she 


416  MARCELLA  book  in 

had  not  been  able  to  save.  He  tried  to  soothe  and  cahn  her,  his 
own  heart  wrung.     But  she  hardly  heard  him. 

At  last  they  turned  into  Maine  Street,  and  she  saw  the  gateway 
of  Brown's  Buildings. 

"Here  we  are,"  she  said  faintly,  summoning  all  her  will;  "do 
you  know  you  will  have  to  help  me  across  that  court,  and  upstairs 
—  then  I  shan't  be  any  more  trouble." 

So,  leaning  on  Raeburn's  arm,  Marcella  made  her  slow  progress 
across  the  court  of  Brown's  Buildings  and  through  the  gaping 
groups  of  children.  Then  at  the  top  of  her  flight  of  steps  she 
withdrew  herself  from  him  with  a  wan  smile. 

"  Now  I  am  home,"  she  said.     "  Good-bye  !  " 

Aldous  looked  round  him  well  at  Brown's  Buildings  as  he  de- 
parted. Then  he  got  into  a  hansom,  and  drove  to  Lady  Winter- 
bourne's  house,  and  implored  her  to  fetch  and  nurse  Marcella 
Boyce,  using  her  best  cleverness  to  hide  all  motion  of  his  in  the 
matter. 

After  which  he  spent  —  poor  Aldous  !  — one  of  the  most. restless 
aTid  miserable  niahts  of  his  life. 


CHAPTER   XI 

Marcella  was  sitting  in  a  deep  and  comfortable  chair  at  the 
open  window  of  Lady  Winterbourne's  drawing-room.  The  house 
—  in  James  Street,  Buckingham  Gate — looked  out  over  the  exer- 
cising ground  of  the  great  barracks  in  front,  and  commanded  the 
greenery  of  St.  James's  Park  to  the  left.  The  planes  lining  the 
barrack  railings  were  poor,  wilted  things,  and  London  was  as  hot 
as  ever.  Still  the  charm  of  these  open  spaces  of  sky  and  park, 
after  the  high  walls  and  innumerable  windows  of  Brown's  Build- 
ings, was  very  great;  Marcella  wanted  nothing  more  but  to  lie  still, 
to  dally  with  a  book,  to  dream  as  she  pleased,  and  to  be  let  alone. 

Lady  Winterbourne  and  her  married  daughter,  Lady  Ermyn- 
trude,  were  still  out,  engaged  in  the  innumerable  nothings  of  the 
fashionable  afternoon.     Marcella  had  her  thoughts  to  herself. 

But  they  M'ere  not  of  a  kind  that  any  one  need  have  wished  to 
share.  In  the  first  place,  she  was  tii*ed  of  idleness.  In  the  early 
days  after  Lady  Winterbourne  had  cariied  her  off,  the  soft  beds 
and  sofas,  the  trained  service  and  delicate  food  of  this  small  but 
luxurious  house  had  been  so  pleasant  to  her  that  she  had  scorned 
herself  for  a  greedy  Sybaritic  temper,  delighted  by  any  means  to 
escape  from  plain  living.  But  she  had  been  here  a  fortnight,  and 
was  now  pining  to  go  back  to  work.  Her  mood  was  too  restless 
and  transitional  to  leave  her  long  in  love  with  comfort  and  folded 


CHAP.   XI  MARCELLA  417 

hands.  She  told  herself  that  she  had  no  longer  any  place  among 
the  rich  and  important  people  of  this  world  ;  far  away  beyond 
these  parks  and  palaces,  in  the  little  network  of  dark  streets  she 
knew,  lay  the  problems  and  the  cares  that  were  really  hers,  through 
which  her  heart  was  somehow  wrestling  —  must  somehow  wrestle 
—  its  passionate  way.  But  her  wrenched  arm  was  still  in  a  sling, 
and  was,  moreover,  undergoing  treatment  at  the  hands  of  a  clever 
specialist;  and  she  could  neither  go  home,  as  her  mother  had 
wished  her  to  do,  nor  return  to  her  nursing  —  a  state  of  affairs 
which  of  late  had  made  her  a  little  silent  and  moody. 

On  the  whole  she  found  her  chief  pleasure  in  the  two  weekly 
visits  she  paid  to  the  woman  whose  life,  it  now  appeared,  she  had 
saved  —  probably  at  some  risk  of  her  own.  The  poor  victim  would 
go  scarred  and  maimed  through  what  remained  to  her  of  existence. 
But  she  lived ;  and  —  as  Marcella  and  Lady  Winterboixrne  and 
Raeburn  had  abundantly  made  up  their  minds — would  be  perma- 
nently cared  for  and  comforted  in  the  futm-e. 

Alas  !  there  were  many  things  that  stood  between  Marcella  and 
true  rest.  She  had  been  woefully  disappointed,  nay  wounded,  as 
to  the  results  of  that  tragic  half-hour  which  for  the  moment  had 
seemed  to  throw  a  bridge  of  friendship  over  those  painful,  estrang- 
ing memories  lying  between  her  and  Aldous  Raeburn.  He  had 
called  two  or  three  times  since  she  had  been  with  Lady  Winter- 
bourne  ;  he  had  done  his  best  to  make  her  inevitable  appearance 
as  a  witness  in  the  police-court,  as  easy  to  her  as  possible ;  the  man 
who  had  stood  by  her  through  such  a  scene  could  do  no  less,  in 
common  politeness  and  humanity.  But  each  time  they  met  his 
manner  had  been  formal  and  constrained ;  there  had  been  little 
conversation ;  and  she  had  been  left  to  the  bitterness  of  feeling 
that  she  had  made  a  strange  if  not  unseemly  advance,  of  which 
he  must  think  unkindly,  since  he  had  let  it  count  with  him  so 
Uttle. 

Childishly,  angrily  —  she  wanted  him  to  befriends  !  Why  shouldn't 
he  ?  He  would  certainly  marry  Betty  Macdonald  in  time,  whatever 
Mr.  Hallin  might  say.  Then  why  not  put  his  pride  away  and  be 
generous  ?  Their  future  lives  must  of  necessity  touch  each  other, 
for  they  were  bound  to  the  same  neighbourhood,  the  same  spot  of 
earth.  She  knew  herself  to  be  her  father's  heiress.  Mellor  must  be 
hers  some  day ;  and  before  that  day,  whenever  her  father's  illness, 
of  which  she  now  understood  the  incurable  though  probably  tedious 
nature,  should  reach  a  certain  stage,  she  must  go  home  and  take  up 
her  life  there  again.  Why  embitter  such  a  situation?  —  make  it 
more  difficult  for  everybody  concerned  ?  Why  not  simply  bury  the 
past  and  begin  again?  In  her  restlessness  she  was  inclined  to 
think  herself  much  wiser  and  more  magnanimous  than  he. 
2e 


418  MARCELLA  book  hi 

Meanwhile  in  the  Winterbourne  household  she  was  living  among 
people  to  whom  Aldous  Raeburn  was  a  dear  and  familiar  compan- 
ion, who  admired  him  with  all  their  hearts,  and  felt  a  sympathetic 
interest  alike  in  his  private  life  and  his  public  career.  Theu-  cir- 
cle, too,  was  his  circle ;  and  by  means  of  it  she  now  saw  Aldous  in 
his  relations  to  his  equals  and  colleagues,  whether  in  the  Ministry 
or  the  House.  The  result  was  a  number  of  new  impressions  which 
she  half  resented,  as  we  may  resent  the  information  that  some 
stranger  will  give  us  upon  a  subject  we  imagined  ourselves  better 
acquainted  with  than  anybody  else.  The  promise  of  Raeburn's 
political  position  struck  her  quick  mind  with  a  curious  surprise. 
She  could  not  explain  it  as  she  had  so  often  tacitly  explained  his 
place  in  Brookshire  —  by  the  mere  accidents  of  birth.  After  all, 
aristocratic  as  we  still  are,  no  party  can  now  afford  to  choose  its 
men  by  any  other  criterion  than  personal  profitableness.  And  a 
man  nowadays  is  in  the  long  run  personally  profitable,  far  more 
by  what  he  is  than  by  what  he  has  —  so  far  at  least  has  "progress " 
brought  us. 

She  saw  then  that  this  quiet,  strong  man,  with  his  obvious  de- 
fects of  temperament  and  manner,  had  already  gained  a  remark- 
able degree  of  "  consideration,"  using  the  word  in  its  French  sense, 
among  his  political  contemporaries.  He  was  beginning  to  be 
reckoned  upon  as  a  man  of  the  future  by  an  inner  circle  of  persons 
whose  word  counted  and  carried ;  while  yet  his  name  was  com- 
paratively little  known  to  the  public.  Marcella,  indeed,  had 
gathered  her  impression  from  the  most  slight  and  various  sources 
—  mostly  from  the  phrases,  the  hints,  the  manner  of  men  already 
themselves  charged  with  the  most  difficult  and  responsible  work  of 
England.  Above  all  things  did  she  love  and  admii'e  power  —  the 
power  of  personal  capacity.  It  had  been  the  secret,  it  was  still 
half  the  secret,  of  Wharton's  influence  with  her.  She  saw  it  here 
under  wholly  different  conditions  and  accessories.  She  gave  it 
recognition  with  a  kind  of  unwillingness.  All  the  same,  Raeburn 
took  a  new  place  in  her  imagination. 

Then  —  apart  from  the  political  world  and  its  judgments  —  the 
intimacy  between  him  and  the  Winterbourne  family  showed  her  to 
him  in  many  new  aspects.  To  Lady  Winterbourne,  his  mother's 
dear  and  close  friend,  he  was  almost  a  son  ;  and  nothing  could  be 
more  charming  than  the  affectionate  and  playful  tolerance  with 
which  he  treated  her  little  oddities  and  weaknesses.  And  to  all 
her  children  he  was  bound  by  the  memories  and  kindnesses  of 
many  years.  He  was  the  godfather  of  Lady  Ermyntrude's  child  ; 
the  hero  and  counsellor  of  the  two  sons,  who  were  both  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  took  his  lead  in  many  things ;  while  there  was  no  one 
with  whom  Lord  Winterbourne  could  more  comfortably  discuss 


CHAP.  XI  MARCELLA  419 

county  or  agricultural  affairs.  In  the  old  days  Marcella  had  some- 
how tended  to  regard  him  as  a  man  of  few  friends.  And  in  a 
sense  it  was  so.  He  did  not  easily  yield  himself ;  and  was  often 
thought  dull  and  apathetic  by  strangers.  But  here,  amid  these 
old  companions,  his  delicacy  and  sweetness  of  disposition  had  full 
play ;  and  although,  now  that  Marcella  was  in  their  house,  he  came 
less  often,  and  was  less  free  with  them  than  usual,  she  saw  enough 
to  make  her  wonder  a  little  that  they  were  all  so  kind  and  indulgent 
to  her,  seeuig  that  they  cared  so  much  for  him  and  all  that  affected 
him. 

Well!  she  was  often  judged,  humbled,  reproached.  Yet  there 
was  a  certain  irritation  in  it.  Was  it  all  her  own  fault  that 
in  her  brief  engagement  she  had  realised  him  so  little?  Her  heart 
was  sometimes  oddly  sore;  her  conscience  full  of  smart;  but  there 
were  moments  when  she  was  as  combative  as  ever. 

Nor  had  certain  other  experiences  of  this  past  fortnight  been 
any  more  soothing  to  this  sore  craving  sense  of  hers.  It  appeared 
very  soon  that  nothing  would  have  been  easier  for  her  had  she 
chosen  than  to  become  the  lion  of  the  later  season.  The  story  of 
the  Batton  Street  tragedy  had,  of  course,  got  into  the  papers,  and 
had  been  treated  there  with  the  usual  adornments  of  the  "  New 
Journalism." 

The  world  which  knew  the  Raeburns  or  knew  of  them  —  com- 
paratively a  large  world — fell  with  avidity  on  the  romantic  jux- 
taposition of  names.  To  lose  your  betrothed  as  Aldous  Raeburn 
had  lost  his,  and  then  to  come  across  her  again  in  this  manner  and 
in  these  circumstances  —  there  was  a  dramatic  neatness  about  it  to 
which  the  careless  Fate  that  governs  us  too  seldom  attains.  Lon- 
don discussed  the  story  a  good  deal ;  and  would  have  liked  dearly 
to  see  and  to  exhibit  the  heroine.  Mrs.  Lane  in  particular,  the 
hostess  of  the  House  of  Commons  dinner,  felt  that  she  had  claims, 
and  was  one  of  the  first  to  call  at  Lady  Winterbourne's  and  see 
her  guest.  She  soon  discovered  that  Marcella  had  no  intention 
whatever  of  playing  the  lion ;  and  must,  in  fact,  avoid  excitement 
and  fatigue.  But  she  had  succeeded  in  getting  the  girl  to  come  to 
her  once  or  twice  of  an  afternoon  to  meet  two  or  three  people.  It 
was  better  for  the  wounded  arm  that  its  owner  should  walk  than 
drive;  and  Mrs.  Lane  lived  at  a  convenient  distance,  at  a  house  in 
Piccadilly,  just  across  the  Green  Park. 

Here  then,  as  in  James  Street,  Marcella  had  met  in  discreet  suc- 
cession a  few  admiring  and  curious  persons,  and  had  tasted  some 
of  the  smaller  sweets  of  fame.  But  the  magnet  that  drew  her  to 
the  Lanes'  house  had  been  no  craving  for  notoriety;  at  the  present 
moment  she  was  totally  indifferent  to  what  perhaps  constitution- 
ally she  might  have  liked ;  the  attraction  had  been  simply  the 


420  MARCELLA  book  hi 

occasional  presence  there  of  Harry  Wharton.  He  excited,  puzzled, 
angered,  and  commanded  her  more  than  ever.  She  could  not  keep 
herself  away  from  the  chance  of  meeting  him.  And  Lady  Winter- 
bourne  neither  knew  him,  nor  apparently  wished  to  know  him  —  a 
fact  which  probably  tended  to  make  Marcella  obstinate. 

Yet  what  pleasure  had  there  been  after  all  in  these  meetings ! 
Again  and  again  she  had  seen  him  surrounded  there  by  j^retty 
and  fashionable  women,  with  some  of  whom  he  was  on  amazingly 
easy  terms,  while  with  all  of  them  he  talked  their  language,  and 
so  far  as  she  could  see  to  a  great  extent  lived  their  life.  The  con- 
tradiction of  the  House  of  Commons  evening  returned  upon  her 
perpetually.  She  thought  she  saw  in  many  of  his  new  friends  a 
certain  malicious  triumjjh  in  the  readiness  with  which  the  young 
demagogue  had  yielded  to  their  baits.  No  doubt  they  were  at 
least  as  much  duped  as  he.  Like  Hallin,  she  did  not  believe  that 
at  bottom  he  was  the  man  to  let  himself  be  held  by  silken  bonds 
if  it  should  be  to  his  interest  to  bi'eak  them.  But,  meanwhile,  his 
bearing  among  these  peojDle — -the  claims  they  and  their  amuse- 
ment made  upon  his  time  and  his  mind  —  seemed  to  this  girl,  who 
watched  them  with  her  dark,  astonished  eyes,  a  kind  of  treachery 
to  his  place  and  his  cause.  It  was  something  she  had  never 
dreamed  of ;  and  it  roused  her  contempt  and  irritation. 

Then  as  to  herself.  He  had  been  all  eagerness  in  his  enquiries 
after  her  from  Mrs.  Lane  ;  and  he  never  saw  her  in  the  Piccadilly 
drawing-room  that  he  did  not  pay  her  homage,  often  with  a  certain 
extravagance,  a  kind  of  appropriation,  which  Mrs.  Lane  secretly 
thought  in  bad  taste,  and  Marcella  sometimes  resented.  On  the 
other  hand,  things  jarred  between  them  frequently.  From  day 
to  day  he  varied.  She  had  dreamt  of  a  great  friendship ;  but 
instead,  it  was  hardly  possible  to  carry  on  the  thread  of  their  rela- 
tion from  meeting  to  meeting  with  simplicity  and  trust.  On  the 
terrace  he  had  behaved,  or  would  have  behaved,  if  she  had  allowed 
him,  as  a  lover.  When  they  met  again  at  Mrs.  Lane's  he  would 
be  sometimes  devoted  in  his  old  paradoxical,  flattering  vein ; 
sometimes,  she  thought,  even  cool.  Nay,  once  or  twice  he  was 
guilty  of  curious  little  neglects  towards  her,  generally  in  the  pres- 
ence of  some  great  lady  or  other.  On  one  of  these  occasions  she 
suddenly  felt  herself  flushing  from  brow  to  chin  at  the  thought  — 
"  He  does  not  want  any  one  to  suppose  for  a  moment  that  he 
wishes  to  marry  me  !  " 

It  had  taken  Wharton  some  difficult  hours  to  subdue  in  her  the 
effects  of  that  one  moment's  fancy.  Till  then  it  is  the  simjDle  truth 
to  say  that  she  had  never  seriously  considered  the  possibility  of 
marrying  him.  When  it  did  enter  her  mind,  she  saw  that  it  had 
already  entered  his — and  that  he  was  full  of  doubts  1     The  per- 


CHAP.  XI  MAKCELLA  421 

ception  had  given  to  her  manner  an  increasing  aloofness  and 
pride  which  had  of  late  piqued  Wharton  into  efforts  from  which 
vanity,  and,  indeed,  something  else,  could  not  refrain,  if  he  was  to 
preserve  his  power. 

So  slie  was  sitting  by  the  wdndow  this  afternoon,  in  a  mood 
which  had  in  it  neither  simplicity  nor  joy.  She  was  conscious  of 
a  certain  dull  and  baffled  feeling  —  a  sense  of  humiliation  —  which 
hurt.  Moreover,  the  scene  of  sordid  horror  she  had  gone  through 
haunted  her  imagination  perpetually.  She  was  unstrung,  and  the 
world  weighed  upon  her  —  the  pity,  the  ugliness,  the  confusion 
of  it. 

The  muslin  curtain  beside  her  suddenly  swelled  out  in  a  draught 
of  air,  and  she  put  out  her  hand  quickly  to  catch  the  French  win- 
dow lest  it  should  swing  to.  Some  one  had  opened  the  door  of 
the  room. 

"Djo?  I  blow  you  out  of  window  ?  "  said  a  gii-l's  voice ;  and  there 
behind  her,  in  a  half-timid  attitude,  stood  Betty  Macdonald,  a 
vision  of  white  muslin,  its  fi'ills  and  capes  a  little  tossed  by  the 
wind,  the  pointed  face  and  golden  hair  showing  small  and  elf-like 
under  the  big  shady  hat. 

"  Oh,  do  come  in  !  "  said  Marcella,  shyly ;  "  Lady  Winterbourne 
will  be  in  directly." 

"So  Panton  told  me,"  said  Betty,  sinking  down  on  a  high  stool 
beside  Marcella's  chair,  and  taking  off  her  hat ;  "  and  Panton 
doesn't  tell  me  any  stories  noiu — I've  trained  him.  I  wonder  how 
many  he  tells  in  the  day?  Don't  you  think  there  will  be  a  special 
little  corner  of  purgatory  for  London  butlers  ?  I  hope  Panton  will 
get  off  easy  !  " 

Then  she  laid  her  sharp  chin  on  her  tiny  hand,  and  studied 
Marcella.  Miss  Boyce  was  in  the  light  black  dress  that  Minta 
approved ;  her  pale  face  and  delicate  hands  stood  out  from  it 
with  a  sort  of  noble  emphasis.  When  Betty  had  first  heard  of 
Marcella  Boyce  as  the  heroine  of  a  certain  story,  she  had  thought 
of  her  as  a  girl  one  would  like  to  meet,  if  only  to  prick  her  some- 
how for  breaking  the  heart  of  a  good  man.  Now  that  she  saw 
her  close  she  felt  herseK  near  to  falling  in  love  with  her.  More- 
over, the  incident  of  the  fight  and  of  j\liss  Boyce's  share  in  it  had 
thrilled  a  creature  all  susceptibility  and  curiosity;  and  the  little 
merry  thing  would  sit  hushed,  looking  at  the  heroine  of  it,  awed 
by  the  thoiight  of  what  a  girl  only  two  years  older  than  herself 
must  have  already  seen  of  sin  and  tragedy,  envying  her  with  all 
her  heart,  and  by  contrast  honestly  despising  —  for  the  moment  — 
that  very  happy  and  popular  person,  Betty  Macdonald ! 

"  Do  you  like  being  alone  ?  "  she  asked  Marcella,  abruptly. 


422  MAKCELLA  book  hi 

Marcella  coloured. 

"  Well,  I  was  just  getting  very  tired  of  my  own  company,"  she 
said.     "  I  was  very  glad  to  see  you  come  in." 

"  Were  you  ?  "  said  Betty,  joyously,  with  a  little  gleam  in  her 
pretty  eyes.  Then  suddenly  the  golden  head  bent  forward.  "  May 
I  kiss  you  ?  "  she  said,  in  the  wistf ullest,  eagerest  voice. 

Marcella  smiled,  and,  laying  her  hand  on  Betty's,  shyly  drew 
her. 

"  That's  better  !  "  said  Betty,  with  a  long  breath.  "  That's  the 
second  milestone;  the  first  was  when  I  saw  you  on  the  terrace. 
Couldn't  you  niai'k  all  your  friendships  by  little  white  stones?  I 
could.  But  the  horrid  thing  is  when  you  have  to  mark  them  back 
again !     Nobody  ever  did  that  with  you ! " 

"  Because  I  have  no  friends,"  said  Marcella,  quickly ;  then,  when 
Betty  clapped  her  hands  in  amazement  at  such  a  speech,  she  added 
quickly  with  a  smile, "'  except  a  few  I  make  poultices  for." 

"  There ! "  said  Betty,  enviously,  "  to  think  of  being  really  wanted 

—  for  poultices  —  or  anything !  I  never  was  wanted  in  my  life ! 
When  I  die  they'll  put  on  my  poor  little  grave  — 

"  She's  buried  here  —  that  hizzie  Betty ; 
She  did  na  gude  —  so  don't  ee  fret  ye! 

—  oh,  there  they  are!"  —  she  ran  to  the  window — "Lady  Win- 
terbourne  and  Ermyntrude.  Doesn't  it  make  you  laugh  to  see 
Lady  Winterbourne  doing  her  duties  ?  She  gets  into  her  carriage 
after  lunch  as  one  might  mount  a  tumbril.  1  expect  to  hear  her 
tell  the  coachman  to  drive  to  '  the  scaffold  at  Hyde  Park  Corner.' 
She  looks  the  unhappiest  woman  in  England  —  and  all  the  time 
Ermyntrude  declares  she  likes  it,  and  wouldn't  do  without  her 
season  for  the  world !  She  gives  Ermyntrude  a  lot  of  trouble, 
but  she  is  a  dear  —  a  naughty  dear  —  and  mothers  ai-e  such  a 
chance  !  Ermyntrude  !  tohere  did  you  get  that  bonnet  ?  You  got 
it  without  me  —  and  my  feelings  won't  stand  it !  " 

Lady  Ermyntrude  and  Betty  threw  themselves  on  a  sofa  together, 
chattering  and  laughing.  'Lady  Winterbourne  came  up  to  Mar- 
cella and  enquired  after  her.  She  was  still  slowly  drawing  off  her 
gloves,  when  the  drawing-room  door  opened  again. 

"  Tea,  Panton !  "  said  Lady  Winterbourne,  without  turning  her 
head,  and  in  the  tone  of  Lady  Macbeth.  But  the  magnificent  but- 
ler took  no  notice. 

"  Lady  Selina  Farrell !  "  he  announced  in  a  firm  voice. 

Lady  Winterboui-ne  gave  a  nervous  start ;  then,  with  the  air  of 
a  person  cut  out  of  wood,  made  a  slight  advance,  and  held  out  a 
limp  hand  to  her  visitor.    , 


CHAP.  XI  MAKCELLA  423 

"  AVou't  you  sit  down  ?  "  she  said. 

Anybody  who  did  not  know  her  would  have  supposed  that  she 
had  never  seen  Lady  Selina  before.  In  reality  she  and  the  Aires- 
fords  were  cousins.  But  she  did  not  like  Lady  Selina,  and  never 
took  any  pains  to  conceal  it —  a  fact  which  did  not  in  the  smallest 
degree  interfere  with  the  younger  lady's  performance  of  her  family 
duties. 

Lady  Selina  found  a  seat  with  easy  aplomb,  put  uj)  her  bejew- 
elled fingers  to  draw  off  her  veil,  and  smilingly  prepared  herself 
for  tea.  She  enquired  of  Betty  how  she  was  enjoying  herself,  and 
of  Lady  Ermyntrude  how  her  husband  and  baby  in  the  country 
were  getting  on  without  her.  The  tone  of  this  last  question  made 
the  person  addressed  flush  and  draw  herself  up.  It  was  put  as 
banter,  but  certainly  conveyed  that  Lady  Ermyntrude  was  neglect- 
ing her  family  for  the  sake  of  dissipations.  Betty  meanwhile 
curled  herself  up  in  a  corner  of  the  sofa,  letting  one  pretty  foot 
swing  over  the  other,  and  watching  the  new-comer  with  a  malicious 
eye,  which  instantly  and  gleefully  perceived  that  Lady  Selina 
thought  her  attitude  ungraceful. 

Marcella,  of  course,  was  greeted  and  condoled  with  —  Lady 
Selina,  however,  had  seen  her  since  the  tragedy  —  and  then  Lady 
Winterbourne,  after  every  item  of  her  family  news,  and  every 
symptom  of  her  own  and  her  husband's  health  had  been  rigor- 
ously enquired  into,  began  to  attempt  some  feeble  questions  of  her 
own  —  how,  for  instance,  was  Lord  Alresford's  gout? 

Lady  Selina  replied  that  he  was  well,  but  much  depressed  by  the 
political  situation.  No  doubt  Ministers  had  done  their  best,  but 
he  thought  two  or  three  foolish  mistakes  had  been  made  during 
the  session.  Certain  blunders  ought  at  all  hazards  to  have  been 
avoided.  He  feared  that  the  party  and  the  cou.ntry  might  have  to 
pay  dearly  for  them.     But  he  had  done  his  best. 

Lady  Winterbourne,  whose  eldest  son  was  a  junior  whip,  had 
been  the  recipient,  since  the  advent  of  the  new  Cabinet,  of  so 
much  rejoicing  over  the  final  exclusion  of  "  that  vain  old  idiot, 
Alresford,"  from  any  further  chances  of  muddling  a  public  depart- 
ment, that  Lady  Selina's  talk  made  her  at  once  nervous  and  irri- 
table. She  was  afraid  of  being  indiscreet ;  yet  she  longed  to  put 
her  visitor  down.  In  her  odd  disjointed  way,  too,  she  took  a  real 
interest  in  politics.  Her  craving  idealist  nature  —  mated  with  a 
cheery  sportsman  husband  who  laughed  at  her,  yet  had  made  her 
happy  —  was  always  trying  to  reconcile  the  ends  of  eternal  justice 
with  the  measures  of  the  Tory  party.  It  was  a  task  of  Sisyphus ; 
but  she  would  not  let  it  alone. 

"I  do  not  agree  with  you,"  she  said  with  cold  shyness  in  answer 
to  Lady  Selina's  concluding  laments -—"I  am  told  —  our  people 


424  MARCELLA  book  hi 

say  —  we  are  doing  very  well  —  except  that  the  session  is  likely  to 
be  dreadfully  long." 

Lady  Selina  raised  both  her  eyebrows  and  her  shoulders. 

'■'■Dear  Lady  Winterbourne  !  you  really  mean  it  ?  "  she  said  with 
the  indulgent  incredulity  one  shows  to  the  simple-minded  —  "But 
just  think!  The  session  will  go  on,  every  one  says,  till  quite  the 
end  of  September.  Isn't  that  enough  of  itself  to  make  a  party 
discontented?  All  our  big  measures  are  in  dreadful  arrears.  And 
my  father  believes  so  much  of  the  friction  might  have  been  avoided. 
He  is  all  in  favour  of  doing  more  for  Labour.  He  thinks  these 
Labour  men  might  have  been  easily  propitiated  without  anything 
revolutionary.  It's  no  good  supposing  that  these  poor  starving 
people  will  wait  for  ever !  " 

"Oh!  "  said  Lady  Winterbourne,  and  sat  staring  at  her  visitor. 
To  those  who  knew  its  author  well,  the  monosyllable  could  not 
have  been  more  expressive.  Lady  Winterbourne's  sense  of  humour 
had  no  voice,  but  inwardly  it  was  busy  with  Lord  Alresford  as  the 
"  friend  of  the  poor."  Alresford  '.  —  the  narrowest  and  niggardliest 
tyrant  alive,  so  far  as  his  own  servants  and  estate  were  concerned. 
And  as  to  Lady  Selina,  it  was  well  known  to  the  Winterbourne 
cousinship  that  she  could  never  get  a  maid  to  stay  with  her  six 
months. 

"  What  did  you  think  of  Mr.  Wharton's  speech  the  other  night?  " 
said  Lady  Selina,  bending  suavely  across  the  tea-table  to  Marcella. 

"It  was  very  interesting,"  said  Marcella,  stiffly — perfectly  con- 
scious that  the  name  had  pricked  the  attention  of  everybody  in 
the  room,  and  angry  with  her  cheeks  for  reddening. 

"  Wasn't  it  ?  "  said  Lady  Selina,  heartily.  "  You  can't  do  those 
things,  of  course !  But  you  should  show  every  sympathy  to  the 
clever  enthusiastic  young  men  —  the  men  like  that  —  shouldn't 
you?  That's  what  my  father  says.  He  says  we've  got  to  win 
them.  We've  got  somehow  to  make  them  feel  us  their  friends  — 
or  we  shall  all  go  to  ruin  I  They  have  the  voting  power  —  and  we 
are  the  party  of  education,  of  refinement.  If  we  can  only  lead 
that  kind  of  man  to  see  the  essential  justice  of  our  cause  —  and  at 
the  same  time  give  them  our  help  —  in  reason  —  show  them  we 
want  to  be  their  friends  —  wouldn't  it  be  best?  I  don't  know 
whether  I  put  it  rightly  —  you  know  so  much  aboiit  these  things  ! 
But  we  can't  undo  '67  —  can  we?  We  must  get  round  it  somehow 
—  mustn't  we?  And  my  father  thinks  Ministers  so  unwise  !  But 
perhaps  "  —  and  Lady  Selina  drew  herseK  back  with  a  more  gra- 
cious smile  than  ever  —  "I  ought  not  to  be  saymg  these  things  to 
you  —  of  course  I  know  you  used  to  think  us  Conservatives  very 
bad  people  —  but  Mr.  Wharton  tells  me,  perhaps  you  don't  think 
quite  so  hardly  of  us  as  you  used?" 


CHAP.  XI  MARCELLA  425 

Lady  Selina's  head  in  its  Paris  bonnet  fell  to  one  side  in  a  gentle 
interrogative  sort  of  way. 

Something  roused  in  Marcella. 

" Oiu-  cause ? "  she  repeated,  while  the  dark  eye  dilated  —  "I 
wonder  what  you  mean?." 

"  Well,  I  mean  — "  said  Lady  Seliua,  seeking  for  the  harmless 
word,  in  the  face  of  this  unknown  explosive-looking  girl  —  "I 
mean,  of  course,  the  cause  of  the  educated  —  of  the  people  who 
have  made  the  country." 

"  I  think,"  said  Marcella,  quietlj^,  "  you  mean  the  cause  of  the  • 
rich,  don't  you?" 

"  Marcella ! "  cried  Lady  Winterbourne,  catching  at  the  tone 
rather  than  words  —  "I  thought  you  didn't  feel  like  that  any  more 

—  not  about  the  distance  between  the  poor  and  the  rich  —  and  our 
tyranny —  and  its  being  hopeless  —  and  the  poor  always  hating  us 

—  I  thought  you  changed." 

And  forgetting  Lady  Selina,  remembering  only  the  old  talks  at 
Mellor,  Lady  Winterbourne  bent  forward  and  laid  an  appealing 
hand  on  Marcella's  arm. 

Marcella  turned  to  her  with  an  odd  look. 

"  If  you  only  knew,"  she  said,  "  how  much  more  possible  it 
is  to  think  well  of  the  rich,  when  you  are  living  amongst  the 
poor ! " 

"Ah!  you  must  be  at  a  distance  from  us  to  do  us  justice?" 
enquired  Lady  Selina,  settling  her  bracelets  with  a  sarcastic  lip. 

"  /  must,"  said  Marcella,  looking,  however,  not  at  her,  but  at 
Lady  Winterbourne.  "  But  then,  you  see,"  —  she  caressed  her 
friend's  hand  with  a  smile  —  "  it  is  so  easy  to  throw  some  people 
into  opposition ! " 

"  Dreadfully  easy  !  "  sighed  Lady  Winterbourne. 

The  flush  mounted  again  in  the  girl's  cheek.  She  hesitated, 
then  felt  driven  to  explanations. 

"You  see  —  oddly  enough" — she  pointed  away  for  an  instant 
to  the  north-east  through  the  open  window  —  "  it's  when  I'm  over 
there  —  among  the  people  who  have  nothing  —  that  it  does  me 
good  to  remember  that  there  are  persons  who  live  in  James  Street, 
Buckingham  Gate ! " 

"  My  dear !  I  don't  understand,"  said  Lady  Winterbourne, 
studying  her  with  her  most  perplexed  and  tragic  air. 

"Well,  isn't  it  simple?"  said  Marcella,  still  holding  her  hand 
and  looking  up  at  her.  "It  comes,  I  suppose,  of  going  about  all 
day  in  those  streets  and  houses,  among  people  who  live  in  one 
room  —  with  not  a  bit  of  prettiness  anywhere  —  and  no  place  to 
be  alone  in,  or  to  rest  in.  I  come  home  and  gloat  over  all  the 
beautiful  dresses  and  houses  and  gardens  I  can  think  of  I  " 


426  MARCELLA  book  hi 

"But  don't  you  liate  the  people  that  have  them?"  said  Betty, 
again  on  her  stool,  chin  in  hand. 

"  No !  it  doesn't  seem  to  matter  to  me  then  what  kind  of  people 
they  are.  And  I  don't  so  much  want  to  take  from  them  and  give 
to  the  others.  I  only  want  to  be  sure  that  the  beauty,  and  the 
leisure,  and  the  freshness  are  so/Hewhere  —  not  lost  out  of  the 
world." 

"  How  strange !  —  in  a  life  like  yours  —  that  one  shoidd  think 
so  much  of  the  ugliness  of  being  poor  —  more  than  of  suffering  or 
pain,"  said  Betty,  musing. 

"  Well  —  in  some  moods  —  you  do  —  /  do  !  "  said  Marcella ;  *'  and 
it  is  in  those  jnoods  that  I  feel  least  resentful  of  wealth.  If  I  say 
to  myself  that  the  people  who  have  all  the  beauty  and  the  leisure 
are  often  selfish  and  cru^el  —  after  all  they  die  out  of  their  houses 
and  their  parks,  and  their  pictures,  in  time,  like  the  shell-fish  out 
of  its  shell.  The  beauty  and  the  grace  which  they  created  or 
inherited  remain.  And  why  should  one  be  envious  of  them  person- 
ally? They  have  had  the  best  chances  in  the  world  and  thrown 
them  away  —  are  but  poor  animals  at  the  end  !  At  any  rate  I 
can't  hate  them  —  they  seem  to  have  a  function  —  when  I  am 
moving  about  Drury  Lane  !  "  she  added  with  a  smile. 

"But  how  can  one  help  being  ashamed?"  said  Lady  Winter- 
bourne,  as  her  eyes  wandered  over  her  pretty  room,  and  she  felt 
herself  driven  somehow  into  playing  devil's  advocate. 

"  No  !  No !  "said  Marcella,  eagerly,  "  don't  be  ashamed  !  As  to 
the  people  who  make  beauty  more  beautiful  —  who  share  it  and 
give  it — I  oiten  feel  as  if  I  could  say  to  them  on  my  knees.  Never, 
never,  be  ashamed  merely  of  being  rich — of  living  with  beautiful 
things,  and  having  time  to  enjoy  them !  One  might  as  well  be 
ashamed  of  being  strong  rather  than  a  cripple,  or  having  two  eyes 
rather  than  one !  " 

"Oh,  but,  my  dear!  "  cried  Lady  AVinterbourne,  piteous  and  be- 
wildered, "  when  one  has  all  the  beauty  and  the  freedom  —  and 
other  people  must  die  without  any  —  " 

"Oh,  I  know,  I  hiotv!"  said  Marcella,  with  a  quick  gesture  of 
despair ;  "  that's  what  makes  the  world  the  world.  And  one  be- 
gins with  thinking  it  can  be  changed  —  that  it  must  and  shall  be 
changed!  —  that  everybody  could  have  wealth  —  could  have  beauty 
and  rest,  and  time  to  think,  that  is  to  say  —  if  things  were  differ- 
ent—  if  one  could  get  Socialism  —  if  one  could  beat  down  the 
capitalist  —  if  one  could  level  down,  and  level  up,  till  everybody 
had  2001.  a  year.  One  tmms  and  fingers  the  puzzle  all  day  long. 
It  seems  so  near  coming  right  —  one  guesses  a  hundred  ways  in 
which  it  might  be  done  !  Then  after  a  while  one  stumbles  upon 
doubt  —  oue  begins  to  see  that  it  never  will,  never  can  come  right 


CHAP.  XI  MARCELLA  427 

—  not  in  any  mechanical  way  of  that  sort  —  that  that  isn't  what 
was  meant ! " 

Her  voice  dropped  drearily.  Betty  Macdonald  gazed  at  her  with 
a  girl's  nascent  adoration.  Lady  Winterbonrne  was  looking  puzzled 
and  unhappy,  but  absorbed  like  Betty  in  Mai'cella.  Lady  Selina, 
studying  the  thi-ee  with  smiling  composure,  was  putting  on  her 
veil,  with  the  most  careful  attention  to  fringe  and  hairpins.  As  for 
Ermyntude,  she  was  no  longer  on  the  sofa;  she  had  risen  noise- 
lessly, finger  on  lip,  almost  at  the  beginning  of  Marcella's  talk,  to 
greet  a  visitor.  She  and  he  were  standing  at  the  back  of  the  room, 
in  the  opening  of  the  conservatory,  unnoticed  by  any  of  the  gi'oup 
in  the  bow  window. 

"  Don't  you  think,"  said  Lady  Selina,  airily,  her  white  fingers 
still  busy  with  her  bonnet,  "  that  it  would  be  a  very  good  thing 
to  send  all  the  Radicals  —  the  well-to-do  Radicals  I  mean  —  to 
live  among  the  poor?  It  seems  to  teach  people  such  extremely 
usefid  things !  " 

INIarcella  straightened  herself  as  though  some  one  had  touched 
her  impertinently.     She  looked  round  quickly. 

"  I  wonder  what  you  suppose  it  teaches  ?  " 

"  Well,"  said  Lady  Selina,  a  little  taken  aback  and  hesitating ; 
"well!  I  suppose  it  teaches  a  person  to  be  content  —  and  not  to 
cry  for  the  moon  !  " 

"  You  think"  said  Marcella,  slowly,  " that  to  live  among  the  poor 
can  teach  any  one  —  any  one  that's  human — to  be  content!" 

Her  manner  had  the  unconscious  intensity  of  emphasis,  the 
dramatic  force  that  came  to  her  from  another  blood  than  ours. 
Another  woman  could  hardly  have  fallen  into  such  a  tone  without 
affectation  —  without  pose.  At  this  moment  certainly  Betty,  who 
was  watching  her,  acquitted  her  of  either,  and  warmly  thought 
her  a  magnificent  creature. 

Lady  Selina's  feeling  simply  was  that  she  had  been  roughly 
addressed  by  her  social  inferior.     She  drew  herself  up. 

"  As  I  understand  you,"  she  said  stiffly,  "  you  yourself  confessed 
that  to  live  with  poverty  had  led  you  to  think  more  reasonably  of 
wealth." 

Suddenly  a  movement  of  Lady  Ermyntrude's  made  the  speaker 
turn  her  head.  She  saw  the  pair-  at  the  end  of  the  room,  looked 
astonished,  then  smiled. 

"  Why,  Mr.  Raeburn !  where  have  you  been  hiding  yourself 
during  this  great  discussion?  Most  consoling,  wasn't  it — on  the 
whole  —  to  us  West  End  people  ?  " 

She  threw  back  a  keen  glance  at  Marcella.  Lady  Ermyntrude 
and  Raeburn  came  forward. 

"I  made  him  be  quiet,"  said  Lady  Ermyntrude,  not   looking, 


428  MAKCELLA  book  hi 

however,  quite  at  her  ease  ;  "  it  would  have  been  a  shame  to 
interrupt." 

"  I  think  so,  indeed  !  "  said  Lady  Selina,  with  emphasis.  "  Good- 
bye, dear  Lady  Winterbourne  ;  good-bye,  Miss  Boyce  !  You  have 
comforted  me  very  much  !  Of  course  one  is  sorry  for  the  poor ; 
but  it  is  a  great  thing  to  hear  from  anybody  who  knows  as  much 
about  it  as  you  do,  that  —  after  all — it  is  no  crime — to  possess  a 
little  !  " 

She  stood  smiling,  looking  from  the  girl  to  the  man — then, 
escorted  by  Raeburn  in  his  very  stiffest  manner,  she  swept  out  of 
the  room. 

When  Aldous  came  back,  with  a  somewhat  slow  and  hesitating 
step,  he  approached  Marcella,  who  was  standing  silent  by  the  win- 
dow, and  asked  after  the  lame  arm.  He  was  sorry,  he  said,  to  see 
that  it  was  still  in  its  sling.  His  tone  was  a  little  abrupt.  Only 
Lady  Winterbourne  saw  the  quick  nervousness  of  the  eyes. 

"  Oh !  thank  you,"  said  Marcella,  coldly,  "  I  shall  get  back  to 
work  next  week." 

She  stooped  and  took  up  her  book. 

"  I  must  please  go  and  write  some  letters,"  she  said,  in  answer 
to  Lady  Winterbourne's  flurried  look. 

And  she  walked  away.  Betty  and  Lady  Ermyntrude  also  went 
to  take  off  their  things. 

"  Aldous ! "  said  Lady  Winterbom-ne,  holding  out  her  hand  to 
him. 

He  took  it,  glanced  unwillingly  at  her  wistful,  agitated  face, 
pressed  the  hand,  and  let  it  go. 

"  Isn't  it  sad,"  said  his  old  friend,  unable  to  help  herself,  "  to  see 
her  battling  like  this  with  life  —  with  thought  —  all  alone?  Isn't 
it  sad,  Aldous?" 

"  Yes,"  he  said.  Then,  after  a  pause,  "  Why  doesn't  she  go 
home  ?     My  patience  gives  out  when  I  think  of  Mrs.  Boyce." 

"  Oh !  it  isn't  Mrs.  Boyce's  fault,"  said  Lady  Winterbourne, 
hopelessly.  "  And  I  don't  know  why  one  should  be  sorry  for  her 
particularly  —  why  one  should  want  her  to  change  her  life  again. 
She  does  it  splendidly.  Only  I  never,  nevei-  feel  that  she  is  a  bit 
happy  in  it." 

It  was  Hallin's  cry  over  again. 

He  said  nothing  for  a  moment ;  then  he  forced  a  smUe. 

"  Well !  neither  you  nor  I  can  help  it,  can  we  ?  "  he  said.  The 
grey  eyes  looked  at  her  steadily  —  bitterly.  Lady  Winterbourne, 
with  the  sensation  of  one  who,  looking  for  softness,  has  lit  on 
granite,  changed  the  subject. 

Meanwhile,  ^Marcella  upstairs  was  walking  restless^  up  and 
down.     She  could  hardly  keep  herself  from  rushing  off  —  back  to 


CHAP.   XI  MARCKLLA  420 

Brown's  Buildings  at  onoe.  Ilr  in  tlu>  room  w  liilo  slu>  \\;us  sayini,' 
those  things  !  Lady  Solina's  words  bnrnt  in  hor  ours.  Her  mor- 
bid, irritable  sense  was  all  one  vibration  of  pride  and  revolt. 
Apology  —  appeal  —  under  the  neatest  comedy  guise  !     Of  course  ! 

—  now  that  l>ord  Maxwell  wa^  dying,  and  the  ill-used  suitor  was 
so  much  the  nearer  to  his  earldom.  A  foolish  girl  had  repented 
her  of  her  folly  —  was  anxious  to  make  those  concerned  luidersland 

—  what  nmre  simple? 

Iler  nerves  were  strained  and  out  of  gear.  Tears  came  in  a 
proud,  passionate  gush;  and  she  nuist  needs  allow  iierself  the 
relief  of  them. 

Meanwhile,  Lady  Selina  had  gone  home  full  of  new  and  uncom- 
fortable feelings.  She  could  not  get  Marcella  Boyce  out  of  her 
head  —  neither  as  she  had  just  seen  her,  under  the  wing  of  "  that 
foolish  wouuvn,  Madeleine  Winterbourne,"  nor  as  she  had  seen  her 
first,  on  the  terrace  with  Harry  Wharton.  It  did  not  please  Lady 
Seliua  to  feel  herself  in  any  way  eclipsed  or  even  rivalled  by  sucli 
an  unimportant  person  as  this  strange  and  ridiculous  girl.  Vet  it 
crossed  her  miml  with  a  stab,  as  she  lay  resting  on  the  sofa  in  her 
little  sitting-room  before  dinner,  that  never  in  all  her  thirty-tive 
years  had  any  lunnau  being  looked  into //cr  face  with  the  sanu»  alter- 
nations of  eagerness  and  satistied  pleasure  she  had  .seen  on  Harry 
Wharton's,  as  he  and  Miss  Boyce  strolli>d  the  terrace  together  — 
nor  even  with  such  a  look  as  that  silly  baby  Hetty  Maedonald  had 
put  on,  as  she  sat  on  a  stool  at  the  heroine's  feet. 

There  was  to  be  a  small  diniu>r-party  at  Alresfonl  House  that 
night.  Wharton  was  to  be  anmng  tlie  guests.  He  was  fast  becom- 
ing one  of  the  hahitin'g  of  the  house,  and  would  often  stay  behind 
to  talk  to  Lady  Selina  when  the  guests  were  gone,  and  Lord  .Mres- 
ford  was  dozing  peacefully  in  a  deep  aru\-chair. 

Lady  Selina  lay  still  in  the  evening  light,  and  let  her  mind, 
which  worked  with  extraordinary  shrewdness  and  force  in  the 
grooves  congenial  to  it,  run  over  some  possibilities  of  the  future. 

Slie  w'as  interrupted  by  the  entrance  of  her  maid,  who,  with  tlu> 
quickened  breath  and  lieightened  colour  she  coidd  not  repress 
when  speaking  to  her  formidable  mistress,  told  her  that  one  of  the 
younger  housemaids  was  very  ill.  Lady  Selimi  enquired,  found 
that  the  doctor  who  always  attended  the  servants  had  been  sent 
for,  and  thought  that  the  illness  micjht  turn  to  rheumatic  fever. 

"Oh,  send  her  otT  to  the  hospital  at  once  !"  said  Lady  Selina. 
"Let  Mrs.  Stewart  see  Dr.  Briggs  first  thing  in  the  morning,  aiul 
make  arrangenuMits.     You  understand?" 

Tlie  girl  hesitated,  and  the  candles  she  was  lighling  showed  that 
she  had  been  crying 


430  MAECELLA  book  hi 

"  If  your  ladyship  would  but  let  her  stay,"  she  said  timidly, 
"we'd  all  take  our  turns  at  nursing  her.  She  comes  from  Ire- 
land, perhaps  you'll  remember,  my  lady.  She's  no  friends  in  Lon- 
don, and  she's  frightened  to  death  of  going  to  the  hospital." 

"  That's  nonsense  ! "  said  Lady  Selina,  sternly.  "  Do  you  think 
I  can  have  all  the  work  of  the  house  put  out  because  some  one  is 
ill  ?  She  might  die  even  —  one  never  knows.  Just  tell  Mrs.  Stew- 
art to  arrange  with  her  about  her  wages,  and  to  look  out  for  some- 
body else  at  once." 

The  girl's  mouth  set  sullenly  as  she  went  about  her  work  —  put 
out  the  shining  satin  dress,  the  jewels,  the  hau'pins,  the  curling- 
irons,  the  various  powders  and  cosmetics  that  were  wanted  for 
Lady  Selina's  toilette,  and  aD.  the  time  there  was  ringing  in  her 
ears  the  piteous  cry  of  a  little  Irish  girl,  clinging  like  a  child  to 
her  only  friend :  "  O  Marie !  dear  Marie !  do  get  her  to  let  me 
stay  —  I'll  do  everything  the  doctor  tells  me  —  I'll  make  haste  and 
get  well  —  I'll  give  no  trouble.  And  it's  all  along  of  the  work  — 
and  the  damp  up  in  these  rooms — the  doctor  said  so." 

An  hour  later  Lady  Selina  was  in  the  stately  drawing-room  of 
Alresford  House,  receiving  her  guests.  She  was  out  of  sorts  and 
temper,  and  though  Wharton  arrived  in  due  time,  and*  she  had  the 
prospect  to  enliven  her  during  dinner — when  he  was  of  necessity 
parted  from  her  by  people  of  higher  rank  —  of  a  tete-a-tete  with 
him  before  the  evening  was  over,  the  dinner  went  heavily.  The 
Duke  on  her  right  hand,  and  the  Dean  on  her  left,  were  equally 
distasteful  to  her.  Neither  food  nor  wine  had  savour ;  and  once, 
when  in  an  interval  of  talk  she  caught  sight  of  her  father's  face 
and  form  at  the  further  end,  growing  more  vacant  and  decrepit 
week  by  week,  she  was  seized  with  a  sudden  angry  pang  of  revolt 
and  repulsion.  Her  father  wearied  and  disgusted  her.  Life  was 
often  triste  and  dull  in  the  great  house.  Yet,  when  the  old  man 
should  have  found  his  grave,  she  would  be  a  much  smaller  person 
than  she  was  now,  and  the  days  would  be  so  much  the  more 
tedious. 

Wharton,  too,  showed  less  than  his  usual  animation.  She  said 
to  herself  at  dinner  that  he  had  the  face  of  a  man  in  want  of 
sleep.  His  young  brilliant  look  was  somewhat  tarnished,  and 
there  was  worry  in  the  restless  eye.  And,  indeed,  she  knew  that 
things  had  not  been  going  so  favourably  for  him  in  the  House  of 
late — that  the  stubborn  opposition  of  the  little  group  of  men  led 
by  Wilkins  was  still  hindering  that  concentration  of  the  party  and 
definition  of  his  own  foremost  place  in  it  which  had  looked  so  close 
and  probable  a  few  weeks  before.  She  supposed  he  had  been  ex- 
hausting himself,  too,  over  that  shocking  Midland  strike.  The 
Clarion  had  been  throwing  itself  into  tlie  battle  of  the  men  with  a 


CHAP.  XI  MARCELLA  431 

monstrous  violence,  for  which  she  had  several  times  reproached 
him. 

When  all  the  guests  had  gone  but  Wharton,  and  Lord  Aires- 
ford,  duly  placed  for  the  sake  of  propriety  in  his  accustomed 
chair,  was  safely  asleep,  Lady  Selina  asked  what  was  the  matter. 

"  Oh,  the  usual  thmg  I  "  he  said,  as  he  leant  against  the  man- 
telpiece beside  her.  "  The  world's  a  poor  place,  and  my  doll's 
stuffed  with  sawdust.     Did  you  ever  know  any  doll  that  wasn't  ?  " 

She  looked  up  at  him  a  moment  without  speaking. 

"  Which  means,"  she  said,  "  that  you  can't  get  your  way  in  the 
House  ?  " 

"  N"o,"  said  Wharton,  meditatively,  looking  down  at  his  boots. 
"No  —  not  yet." 

"  You  think  you  will  get  it  some  day  ?  " 

He  raised  his  eyes. 

"  Oh  yes  !  "  he  said ;  "  oh  dear,  yes !  —  some  day." 

She  laughed. 

"  You  had  better  come  over  to  us." 

"Well,  there  is  always  that  to  think  of,  isn't  there?  You  can't 
deny  you  want  all  the  new  blood  you  can  get ! " 

"  If  you  only  understood  your  moment  and  your  chance,"  she 
said  quickly,  "you  would  make  the  opportunity  and  do  it  at 
once." 

He  looked  at  her  aggressively. 

"  How  easy  it  comes  to  you  Tories  to  rat !  "  he  said. 

"  Thank  you !  it  only  means  that  we  are  the  party  of  common 
sense.     Well,  I  have  been  talking  to  your  Miss  Boyce." 

He  started. 

«  Where  ?  " 

"  At  Lady  Winterbourne's.  Aldous  Raeburn  was  there.  Your 
beautiful  Socialist  was  very  interesting  —  and  rather  surprising. 
She  talked  of  the  advantages  of  wealth  ;  said  she  had  been  con- 
verted—  by  living  among  the  poor  —  had  changed  her  mind,  in 
fact,  on  many  things.  We  were  all  much  edified  —  including  Mr. 
Raeburn.  How  long  do  you  suppose  that  business  will  remain 
'off'?  To  my  mind  I  never  saw  a  young  woman  inore  eager  to 
undo  a  mistake."  Then  she  added  slowly,  "  The  accounts  of  Lord 
Maxwell  get  more  and  more  unsatisfactory." 

Wharton  stared  at  her  with  sparkling  eyes.  "  How  little  you 
know  her!  "  he  said,  not  without  a  tone  of  contempt. 

"  Oh !  very  well,"  said  Lady  Selma,  with  the  slightest  shrug  of 
her  white  shoulders. 

He  turned  to  the  mantelpiece  and  began  to  play  with  some  orna- 
ments upon  it. 

"  Tell  me  what  she  said,"  he  enquu'ed  presently. 


432  MARCELLA  book  hi 

Lady  Selina  gave  her  own  account  of  the  conversation.  Whar- 
ton recovered  himself. 

"Dear  me!"  he  said,  when  she  stopped.  "Yes  —  well  —  we 
may  see  another  act.  Who  knows?  Well,  good-night,  Lady 
Selina." 

She  gave  him  her  hand  with  her  usual  aristocrat's  passivity,  and 
he  went.  But  it  was  late  indeed  that  night  before  she  ceased  to 
speculate  on  what  the  real  effect  of  her  words  had  been  upon  him. 

As  for  Wharton,  on  his  walk  home  he  thought  of  Mai'cella  Boyce 
and  of  Raeburn  with  a  certain  fever  of  jealous  vanity  which  was 
coming,  he  told  himself,  dangerously  near  to  passion.  He  did  not 
believe  Lady  Selina,  but  nevertheless  he  felt  that  her  news  might 
drive  him  into  rash  steps  he  could  ill  afford,  and  had  indeed  been 
doing  his  best  to  avoid.  Meanwhile  it  was  clear  to  him  that  the 
mistress  of  Alresford  House  had  taken  an  envious  dislike  to  Mar- 
cella.  How  plain  she  had  looked  to-night  in  spite  of  her  gorgeous 
dress !  and  how  intolerable  Lord  Alresford  grew ! 


CHAPTER  Xn 

But  what  right  had  Wharton  to  be  thinking  of  such  irrelevant 
matters  as  women  and  love-making  at  all?  He  had  spoken  of 
public  worries  to  Lady  Selina.  In  reality  his  public  prospects  in 
themselves  were,  if  anything,  improved.  It  was  his  private  affairs 
that  were  rushing  fast  on  catastrophe,  and  threatening  to  drag  the 
rest  with  them. 

He  had  never  been  so  hard  pressed  for  money  in  his  life.  In  the 
first  place  his  gambling  debts  had  mounted  up  prodigiously  of 
late.  His  friends  were  tolerant  and  easy-going.  But  the  more 
tolerant  they  were  the  more  he  was  bound  to  frequent  them.  And 
his  luck  for  some  time  had  been  monotonously  bad.  Before  long 
these  debts  must  be  paid,  and  some  of  them  —  to  a  figure  he  shrank 
from  dwelling  upon  —  were  already  urgent. 

Then  as  to  the  Clarion,  it  became  every  week  a  heavier  burden. 
The  expenses  of  it  were  enormous ;  the  returns  totally  inadequate. 
Advertisements  were  falling  off  steadily  ;  and  whether  the  working 
cost  were  cut  down,  or  whether  a  new  and  good  man  like  Louis 
Craven,  whose  letters  from  the  strike  district  were  being  now  uni- 
versally read,  were  put  on,  the  result  financially  seemed  to  be  pre- 
cisely the  same.  It  was  becoming  even  a  desperate  question  how 
the  weekly  expenses  were  to  be  met ;  so  that  Whax'ton's  usual  good 
temper  now  deserted  him  entirely  as  soon  as  he  had  crossed  the 
Clarion  threshold ;  bitterness  had  become  the  portion  of  the  staff, 
and  even  the  office  boys  walked  in  gloom. 


CHAP,  xn  MARCELLA  43:1 

Yet,  at  the  same  time,  withdrawing  from  tlie  business  \\  as  ahnost 
as  difficult  as  carrying  it  on.  There  were  rumours  in  the  air  which 
had  ah'eady  seriously  damaged  the  paper  as  a  salable  concern. 
Wharton,  indeed,  saw  no  prospect  whatever  of  selling  except  at 
rumous  loss.  Meanwhile,  to  bring  the  paper  to  an  abrujat  end 
would  have  not  only  precipitated  a  number  of  his  financial  obliga- 
tions ;  it  would  have  been,  politically,  a  dangerous  confession  of 
failure  made  at  a  very  critical  moment.  For  what  made  the  whole 
thing  the  more  annoying  was  that  the  Clarion  had  never  been  so 
important  politically,  never  so  much  read  by  the  ]persons  on  whom 
Wharton's  parliamentary  future  depended,  as  it  was  at  this  mo- 
ment. The  advocacy  of  the  Damesley  strike  had  been  so  far  a 
stroke  of  business  for  Wharton  as  a  Labour  Member. 

It  was  now  the  seventh  week  of  the  strike,  and  Wharton's 
"  leaders,"  Craven's  letters  from  the  seat  of  war,  and  the  Clarion 
strike  fund,  which  articles  and  letters  had  called  into  existence, 
were  as  vigorous  as  ever.  The  struggle  itself  had  fallen  into  two 
chapters.  In  the  first  the  metal-workers  concerned,  both  men  and 
women,  had  stood  out  for  the  old  wages  unconditionally  and  had 
stoutly  rejected  all  idea  of  arbitration.  At  the  end  of  three  or 
four  weeks,  however,  when  grave  suffering  had  declared  itself 
among  an  already  half-starved  jDopulation,  the  workers  had  con- 
sented to  take  part  in  the  appointment  of  a  board  of  conciliation. 
This  board,  including  the  workmen's  delegates,  overawed  by  the 
facts  of  foreign  competition  as  they  were  disclosed  by  the  masters, 
recommended  terms  which  would  have  amounted  to  a  victory  for 
the  employers. 

The  award  was  no  sooner  known  in  the  district  than  the  pas- 
sionate indignation  of  the  great  majority  of  the  workers  knew  no 
bounds.  Meetings  were  held  everywhere  ;  the  men's  delegates  at 
the  board  were  thrown  over,  and  Craven,  who  with  his  new  wife 
was  travelling  incessantly  over  the  whole  strike  area,  wrote  a  letter 
to  the  Clarion  on  the  award  which  stated  the  men's  case  with 
extreme  ability,  was  immediately  backed  up  by  Wharton  in  a 
tremendous  "  leader,"  and  was  received  among  the  strikers  with 
tears  almost  of  gratitude  and  enthusiasm. 

Since  then  all  negotiations  had  been  broken  off.  The  Clarion 
had  gone  steadily  against  the  masters,  against  the  award,  against 
further  arbitration.  The  theory  of  the  "living  wage,"  of  which 
more  recent  days  have  heard  so  much,  was  preached  in  other 
terms,  but  with  equal  vigour ;  and  the  columns  of  the  Clarion 
bore  witness  day  by  day  in  the  long  lists  of  subscriptions  to  the 
strike  fund,  to  the  effects  of  its  eloquence  on  the  hearts  and 
pockets  of  Englishmen. 

Meanwhile  there  were  strange  rumours  abroad.  It  was  said  that 
2p 


434  MARCELLA  book  hi 

the  trade  was  really  on  the  eve  of  a  complete  and  striking  revolu- 
tion in  its  whole  conditions  —  could  this  labour  war  be  only  cleared 
out  of  the  way.  The  smaller  employers  had  been  for  long  on  the 
verge  of  ruin ;  and  the  larger  men,  so  report  had  it,  were  schem- 
ing a  syndicate  on  the  American  plan  to  embrace  the  whole  indus- 
try, cut  down  the  costs  of  production,  and  regulate  the  output. 

But  for  this  large  capital  would  be  wanted.  Could  capital  be 
got?  The  state  of  things  in  the  trade,  according  to  the  employers, 
had  been  deplorable  for  years ;  a  large  part  of  the  market  had 
been  definitely  forfeited,  so  they  declared,  for  good,  to  Germany 
and  Belgium.  It  would  take  years  before  even  a  powerful  syndi- 
cate could  work  itself  into  a  thoroughly  sound  condition.  Let  the 
men  accept  the  award  of  the  conciliation  board;  let  there  be  some 
stable  and  reasonable  prospect  of  peace  between  masters  and  men, 
say,  for  a  couple  of  years;  and  a  certain  group  of  bankers  would 
come  forward;  and  all  would  be  well.  The  men  under  the  syndi- 
cate would  in  time  get  more  than  their  old  wage.  But  the  award 
first;  otherwise  the  plan  dropped,  and  the  industry  must  go  its 
own  way  to  perdition. 

"'Will  you  walk  into  my  parlour?'"  said  Wharton,  scornfully, 
to  the  young  Conservative  member  who,  with  a  purpose,  was 
explaining  these  things  to  him  in  the  library  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  "  the  merest  trap !  and,  of  course,  the  men  will  see  it 
so.  Who  is  to  guarantee  them  even  the  carrying  thi'ough,  much 
less  the  success,  of  your  precious  syndicate?  And,  in  return  for 
your  misty  millennium  two  years  hence,  the  men  are  to  join  at 
once  in  putting  the  employers  in  a  stronger  position  than  ever? 
Thank  you  !  The  'rent  of  ability  '  in  the  present  state  of  things 
is,  no  doubt,  large.  But  in  this  particular  case  the  Clarion  will  go 
on  doing  its  best  —  I  promise  you  —  to  nibble  some  of  it  away  !  " 

The  Conservative  member  rose  in  indignation. 

"  I  should  be  sorry  to  have  as  many  starving  people  on  my  con- 
science as  you'll  have  before  long ! "  he  said  as  he  took  up  his 
papers. 

At  that  moment  Denny's  rotund  and  square-headed  figure  passed 
along  the  corridor,  to  which  the  library  door  stood  open. 

"  Well,  if  I  thrive  upon  it  as  well  as  Denny  does,  I  shall  do!  " 
returned  Wharton,  with  his  usual  caustic  good-humour,  as  his 
companion  departed. 

And  it  delighted  him  to  think  as  he  walked  home  that  Denny, 
who  had  again  of  late  made  himself  particularly  obnoxious  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  on  two  or  three  occasions,  to  the  owner  of  the 
Clarion,  had  probably  instigated  the  quasi-overtures  he  had  just 
rejected,  and  must  be  by  now  aware  of  their  result. 

Then  he  sent  for  Craven  to  come  and  confer  with  hiin. 


CHAP,  xii  MARCELLA  435 

Craven  accordingly  came  up  from  tlie  Midlands,  pale,  thin,  and 
exhausted,  with  the  exertions  and  emotions  of  seven  weeks'  inces- 
sant labour.  Yet  personally  Wharton  found  him,  as  before,  dry 
and  unsympathetic;  and  disliked  him,  and  his  cool,  ambiguous 
manner,  more  than  ever.  As  to  the  strike,  however,  they  came  to 
a  complete  understanding.  The  Clarion,  or  rather  the  Clarion 
fund,  which  was  doing  better  and  better,  held  the  key  of  the  whole 
situation.  If  that  fund  could  be  maintained,  the  men  could  hold 
out.  In  view  of  the  possible  formation  of  the  syndicate.  Craven 
denounced  the  award  with  more  fierceness  than  ever,  maintaining 
the  redoubled  importance  of  securing  the  men's  terms  before  the 
syndicate  was  launched.  Wharton  promised  him  with  glee  that 
he  should  be  supported  to  the  bitter  end. 

If,  that  is  to  say  —  a  proviso  he  did  not  discuss  with  Craven  — 
the  Clarion  itself  could  be  kept  going.  In  August  a  large  sum, 
obtained  two  years  before  on  the  security  of  new  "  plant,"  would 
fall  due.  The  time  for  repayment  had  already  been  extended ; 
and  Wharton  had  ascertained  that  no  further  extension  was  pos- 
sible. 

Well !  bankruptcy  would  be  a  piquant  interlude  in  his  various 
social  and  political  enterprises  !  How  was  it  to  be  avoided?  He 
had  by  now  jjlenty  of  rich  friends  in  the  City  or  elsewhere,  but 
none,  as  he  finally  decided,  likely  to  be  useful  to  hwn  at  the  present 
moment.  For  the  amount  of  money  that  he  required  was  large  — 
larger,  indeed,  than  he  cared  to  verify  with  any  strictness,  and  the 
security  that  he  could  offer,  almost  nil. 

As  to  friends  in  the  City,  indeed,  the  only  excursion  of  a  business 
kind  that  he  had  made  into  those  regions  since  his  election  was 
now  adding  seriously  to  his  anxieties  —  might  very  well  turn  out, 
unless  the  matter  were  skilfully  managed,  to  be  one  of  the  blackest 
spots  on  his  horizon. 

In  the  early  days  of  his  parliamentary  life,  when,  again,  mostly 
for  the  Clarion's  sake,  money  happened  to  be  much  wanted,  he  had 
become  director  of  what  promised  to  be  an  important  company, 
through  the  interest  and  good  nature  of  a  new  and  rich  acquaint- 
ance, who  had  taken  a  liking  to  the  young  member.  The  company 
had  been  largely  "boomed,"  and  there  had  been  some  very  profit- 
able dealing  in  the  original  shares.  Wharton  had  made  two  or 
three  thousand  pounds,  and  contributed  both  point  and  finish  to 
some  of  the  early  prospectuses. 

Then,  after  six  months,  he  had  withdrawn  from  the  Board, 
under  apprehensions  that  had  been  gradually  realised  with  alarm- 
ing accuracy.  Tilings,  indeed,  had  been  going  very  wrong  indeed  ; 
there  were  a  number  of  small  investors  ;  and  tlie  annual  meeting 
of  the  company,  to  be  held  now  in  some  ten  days,  promised  a 


436  MARCELLA  book  in 

storm.  Wharton  discovered,  partly  to  his  own  amazement,  for  he 
was  a  man  who  quickly  forgot,  tliat  dm-ing  his  directorate  he  had 
devised  or  sanctioned  matters  that  were  not  at  all  likely  to  com- 
mend themselves  to  the  shareholders,  supposing  the  past  were 
really  sifted.  The  ill-luck  of  it  was  ti'uly  stupendous ;  for  on  the 
whole  he  had  kept  himself  financially  very  clean  since  he  had 
become  a  member  ;  having  all  through  a  jealous  eye  to  his  political 


As  to  the  political  situation,  nothing  could  be  at  once  more  prom- 
ising or  more  anxious ! 

An  important  meeting  of  the  whole  Labour  group  had  been 
fixed  for  August  10,  by  which  time  it  was  expected  that  a  great 
measure  concerning  Labour  would  be  returned  from  the  Hol^se  of 
Lords  with  highly  disputable  amendments.  The  last  six  weeks  of 
the  session  would  be  in  many  ways  more  critical  for  Labour  than 
its  earlier  months  had  been  ;  and  it  would  be  proposed  by  Bennett, 
at  the  meeting  on  the  10th,  to  appoint  a  general  chairman  of  the 
party,  in  view  of  a  campaign  which  would  fill  the  remainder  of 
the  session  and  strenuously  occupy  the  recess. 

That  Bennett  would  propose  the  name  of  the  member  for  West 
Brookshire  was  perfectly  well  known  to  Wharton  and  his  friends. 
That  the  nomination  w^ould  meet  with  the  warmest  hostility  from 
Wilkins  and  a  small  group  of  followers  was  also  accurately  fore- 
cast. 

To  this  day,  then,  Wharton  looked  forward  as  to  the  crisis  of 
his  parliamentary  fortunes.  All  his  chances,  financial  or  social, 
must  now  be  calculated  with  reference  to  it.  Every  power,  whether 
of  combat  or  finesse,  that  he  commanded  must  be  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  issue. 

Wliat  was,  however,  most  remarkable  in  the  man  and  the  situa- 
tion at  the  moment  was  that,  through  all  these  gathering  necessi- 
ties, he  was  by  no  means  continuously  anxious  or  troubled  in  his 
mind.  During  these  days  of  July  he  gave  himself,  indeed,  when- 
ever he  could,  to  a  fatalist  oblivion  of  the  annoyances  of  life, 
coupled  with  a  passionate  pursuit  of  all  those  interests  where  his 
ciiances  were  still  good  and  the  omens  still  with  him. 

Especially — during  the  intervals  of  ambition,  intrigue,  journal- 
ism, and  unsuccessful  attempts  to  raise  money  —  had  he  meditated 
the  beauty  of  Marcella  Boyce  and  the  chances  and  difficulties  of 
his  relation  to  her.  As  he  saw  her  less,  he  thought  of  her  more, 
instinctively  looking  to  her  for  the  pleasure  and  distraction  that 
life  was  temporarily  denying  him  elsewhere. 

At  the  same  time,  curiously  enough,  the  stress  of  his  financial 
position  was  reflected  even  in  what,  to  himself,  at  any  rate,  he  was 


CHAP.  XII  MARCELLA  437 

boldly  beginning  to  call  his  "  passion  "  foi'  her.  It  hud  come  to 
his  knowledge  that  Mr.  Boyce  had  during  the  past  year  succeeded 
beyond  all  expectation  in  clearing  tiie  Mellor  estate.  He  had 
made  skilful  use  of  a  railway  lately  opened  on  the  edge  of  his 
property  ;  had  sold  building  land  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a  small 
country  town  on  the  line,  within  a  convenient  distance  of  London  ; 
had  consolidated  and  improved  several  of  his  farms  and  relet  them 
at  higher  rents ;  was,  in  fact,  according  to  Wharton's  local  inform- 
ant, in  a  fair  way  to  be  some  day,  if  he  lived,  quite  as  prosperous 
as  his  grandfather,  in  spite  of  old  scandals  and  invalidism.  Whar- 
ton knew,  or  thought  he  knew,  that  he  would  not  live,  and  that 
Marcella  would  be  his  heiress.  The  prospect  was  not  perhaps 
brilliant,  but  it  was  something  ;  it  affected  the  outlook. 

Although,  however,  this  consideration  counted,  it  was,  to  do  him 
justice,  Marcella,  the  creatui'e  hei'self,  that  he  desired.  But  for  her 
presence  in  his  life  he  would  probably  have  gone  heiress-hunting 
with  the  least  possible  delay.  As  it  was,  his  growing  determi- 
nation to  win  her,  together  with  his  advocacy  of  the  Damesley 
workers  —  amply  sufficed,  during  the  days  that  followed  his  even- 
ing talk  with  Lady  Selina,  to  maintain  his  own  illusions  about 
himself  and  so  to  keep  up  the  zest  of  life. 

Yes  !  —  to  master  and  breathe  passion  into  Marcella  Boyce, 
might  safely  be  reckoned  on,  he  thought,  to  hurry  a  man's  blood. 
And  after  it  had  gone  so  far  between  them— after  he  had  satisfied 
himself  that  her  fancy,  her  temper,  her  heart,  were  all  more  or 
less  occupied  with  him — was  he  to  see  her  tamely  recovered  by 
Aldous  Raeburn  —  by  the  man  whose  advancing  parliamentary 
position  was  now  adding  fresh  offence  to  the  old  grievance  and 
dislike?     No !  not  without  a  dash  —  a  throw  for  it ! 

For  a  while,  after  Lady  Selina's  confidences,  jealous  annoyance, 
together  with  a  certain  reckless  state  of  nerves,  turned  him  almost 
into  the  pining  lover.  For  he  could  not  see  Marcella.  She  came 
no  more  to  Mrs.  Lane ;  and  the  house  in  James  Street  was  not 
open  to  him.  He  perfectly  understood  that  the  Winterbournes 
did  not  want  to  know  him. 

At  last  Mrs.  Lane,  a  shrewd  little  woman  with  a  half-contemptu- 
ous liking  for  Wharton,  let  him  know  —  on  the  strength  of  a  chance 
meeting  with  Lady  Ermyntrude  —  that  the  Winterbournes  would 
be  at  the  Masterton  party  on  the  2Gth.  They  had  jjersuaded  Miss 
Boyce  to  stay  for  it,  and  she  would  go  back  to  her  work  the  Mon- 
day after.  AVharton  carelessly  replied  that  he  did  not  know 
whether  he  would  be  able  to  put  in  an  appearance  at  the  Master- 
tons'-     He  might  be  going  out  of  town. 

Mrs.  Lane  looked  at  him  and  said,  "  Oh,  really !  "  with  a  little 
laugh. 


438  MARCELLA  book  hi 

Lady  Masterton  was  the  wife  of  the  Colonial  Secretary,  and  her 
grand  mansion  in  Grosveiior  Square  was  the  principal  rival  to 
Alresford  House  in  the  hospitalities  of  the  party.  Her  reception 
on  July  25  was  to  be  the  last  considerable  event  of  a  protracted 
but  now  dying  season.  Marcella,  detained  in  James  Street  day 
after  day  against  her  will  by  the  weakness  of  the  injured  arm  and 
the  counsels  of  her  doctor,  had  at  last  extracted  permission  to  go 
back  to  work  on  the  27th ;  and  to  please  Betty  Macdouald  she 
had  promised  to  go  with  the  Winterbournes  to  the  Masterton 
party  on  the  Saturday.  Betty's  devotion,  shyly  as  she  had  opened 
her  proud  heart  to  it,  had  begun  to  mean  a  good  deal  to  her. 
There  was  balm  in  it  for  many  a  wounded  feeling ;  and,  besides, 
there  was  the  constant,  half-eager,  half-painful  interest  of  watch- 
ing Betty's  free  and  childish  ways  with  Aldous  Raeburn,  and  of 
speculating  upon  what  would  ultimately  come  out  of  them. 

So,  when  Betty  first  demanded  to  know  what  she  was  going  to 
wear,  and  then  pouted  over  the  dress  shown  her,  Marcella  sub- 
mitted humbly  to  being  "  freshened  up "  at  the  hands  of  Lady 
Ermyntrude's  maid,  bought  what  Betty  told  her,  and  stood  still 
while  Betty,  who  had  a  genius  for  such  things,  chatted,  and  draped, 
and  suggested. 

"  I  wouldn't  make  you  fashionable  for  the  world !  "  cried  Betty, 
with  a  mouthful  of  pins,  laying  down  masterly  folds  of  lace  and 
chiffon  the  while  over  the  white  satin  with  which  Marcella  had 
provided  her.  "  What  was  it  Worth  said  to  me  the  other  day?  — 
'  Ce  qu'ou  porte.  Mademoiselle  ?  O  pas  grand'chose  !  —  presque 
pas  de  corsage,  et  pas  du  tout  de  manches!'  —  No,  that  kind  of 
thing  wouldn't  suit  you.  But  distinguished  you  shall  be,  if  I  sit  up 
all  night  to  think  it  out !  " 

In  the  end  Betty  was  satisfied,  and  could  hardly  be  prevented 
from  hugging  Marcella  there  and  then,  out  of  sheer  delight  in  her 
own  handiwork,  when  at  last  the  party  emerged  from  the  cloak- 
room into  the  Mastertons'  crowded  hall.  Marcella  too  felt  pleas- 
ure in  the  reflections  of  herself  as  they  passed  up  the  lavishly 
bemirrored  staircase.  The  chatter  about  dress  in  which  she  had 
been  living  for  some  days  had  amused  and  distracted  her;  for 
there  were  great  feminine  potentialities  in  her ;  though  for  eigh- 
teen months  she  had  scarcely  given  what  she  wore  a  thought,  and 
in  her  pre-nursing  days  had  been  wont  to  waver  between  a  kind 
of  proud  neglect,  which  implied  the  secret  consciousness  of  beauty, 
and  an  occasional  passionate  desire  to  look  well.  So  that  she 
played  her  part  to-night  very  fairly ;  pinched  Betty's  arm  to  silence 
the  elf's  tongue  ;  and  held  herself  up  as  she  was  told,  that  Betty's 
handiwork  might  look  its  best.  But  inwardly  the  girl's  mood  was 
very  tilled  and  flat.     She  was  pining  for  her  work ;  pining  even  for 


CHAP.  XII  MARCELLA  439 

Minta  Kurd's  peevish  look,  and  tlie  children  to  whom  she  was  so 
easily  an  earthly  providence. 

In  spite  of  the  gradual  emptying  of  London,  Lady  Masterton's 
rooms  were  very  full.  Marcella  found  acquaintances.  Many  of 
the  people  whom  she  had  met  at  Mrs.  Lane's,  the  two  Cabinet 
Ministers  of  the  House  of  Commons  dinner,  Mr.  Lane  himself  — 
all  were  glad  or  eager  to  recall  themselves  to  her  as  she  stood  by 
Lady  Winterbourne,  or  made  her  way  half  absently  through  the 
press.  She  talked,  without  shyness  —  she  had  never  been  shy,  and 
was  perhaps  nearer  now  to  knowing  what  it  might  mean  than  she 
had  been  as  a  schoolgirl  —  but  without  heart ;  her  black  eye  wan- 
dering meanwhile,  as  though  in  quest.  There  was  a  gay  sprink- 
ling of  uniforms  in  the  crowd,  for  the  Speaker  was  holding  a  levee, 
and  as  it  grew  late  his  guests  began  to  set  towards  Lady  Master- 
ton.  Betty,  who  had  been  turning  up  her  nose  at  the  men  she 
had  so  far  smiled  upon,  all  of  whom  she  declared  were  either  bald 
or  seventy,  was  a  little  propitiated  by  the  uniforms ;  otherwise, 
she  pronounced  the  party  very  dull. 

"  WeU,  upon  my  word !  "  she  cried  suddenly,  in  a  tone  that 
made  Marcella  turn  upon  her.  The  child  was  looking  very  red 
and  very  upright  —  was  using  her  fan  with  great  vehemence,  and 
Frank  Leven  was  humbly  holding  out  his  hand  to  her. 

"I  don't  like  being  startled,"  said  Betty,  pettishly.  "Yes,  you 
did  startle  me  —  you  did — you  did!  And  then  you  begin  to  con- 
tradict before  I've  said  a  word !  I'm  sure  you've  been  contradict- 
ing all  the  way  upstairs  —  and  why  don't  you  say  '  How  do  you 
do  ? '  to  Miss  Boyce  ?  " 

Frank,  looking  very  happy,  but  very  nervous,  paid  his  respects 
rather  bashfully  to  Marcella  —  she  laughed  to  see  how  Betty's 
presence  subdued  him  —  and  then  gave  himself  up  wholly  to 
Betty's  tender  mercies. 

IMarcella  observed  them  with  an  eager  interest  she  could  not 
wholly  explain  to  herself.  It  was  clear  that  all  thought  of  any- 
thing or  anybody  else  had  vanished  for  Frank  Leven  at  the  sight 
of  Betty.  Marcella  guessed,  indeed  knew,  that  they  had  not 
met  for  some  little  time ;  and  she  was  touched  by  the  agitation 
and  happiness  on  the  boy's  handsome  face.  But  Betty?  what  was 
the  secret  of  her  kittenish,  teasing  ways  —  or  was  tliere  any  secret? 
She  held  her  little  head  very  high  and  chattered  very  fast  —  but 
it  was  not  the  same  chatter  that  she  gave  to  Marcella,  nor,  so  far 
as  Marcella  could  judge,  to  Aldous  Raeburn.  jS^ew  elements  of 
character  came  out  in  it.  It  was  self-confident,  wilful,  imperious. 
Frank  was  never  allowed  to  have  an  opinion ;  was  laughed  at 
before  his  words  were  out  of  his  mouth ;  was  generally  heckled, 
played  with,  and  shaken  in  a  way  which  seemed   alternately  to 


440  MARC  ELLA  book  hi 

enrage  and  enchant  him.  In  the  case  of  most  girls,  such  a  manner 
would  have  meant  encouragement ;  but,  as  it  was  Betty,  no  one 
could  be  sure.  The  little  thing  was  a  great  puzzle  to  Marcella, 
who  had  found  unexpected  reserves  in  her.  She  might  talk  of 
her  love  affairs  to  Aldous  Raeburn  ;  she  had  done  nothing  of  the 
sort  with  her  tiew  friend.  And  in  such  matters  Marcella  herself 
was  far  more  reserved  than  most  modern  women. 

"  Betty !  "  cried  Lady  Winterbourne,  "  I  am  going  on  into  the 
next  room." 

Then  in  a  lower  tone  she  said  helplessly  to  Marcella : 

"  Do  make  her  come  on  !  " 

Marcella  perceived  that  her  old  friend  was  in  a  fidget.  Stoop- 
ing her  tall  head,  she  said  with  a  smile  : 

"  But  look  how  she  is  amusing  herself !  " 

"  My  dear  !  —  that's  just  it !  If  you  only  knew  how  her  mother 
—  tiresome  woman  —  has  talked  to  me  !  And  the  young  man  has 
behaved  so  beautif idly  till  now  —  has  given  neither  Ermyntrude 
nor  me  any  trouble." 

Was  that  why  Betty  was  leading  him  such  a  life  ?  Marcella 
wondered,  —  then  suddenly — was  seized  with  a  sick  distaste  for 
the  whole  scene  —  for  Betty's  love  affairs  —  for  her  own  interest 
in  them  —  for  her  own  self  and  personality  above  all.  Her  great 
black  eyes  gazed  straight  before  them,  unseeing,  over  the  crowd, 
the  diamonds,  the  lights ;  her  whole  being  gave  itself  to  a  quick, 
blind  wrestle  with  some  vague  overmastering  pain,  some  despair 
of  life  and  joy  to  which  she  could  give  no  name. 

She  was  roused  by  Betty's  voice  : 

"  Mr.  Raeburn  !  will  you  tell  me  who  people  are  ?  Mr.  Leven's 
no  more  use  than  my  fan.  Just  imagine  —  I  asked  him  who  that 
lady  in  the  tiara  is  —  and  he  vows  he  doesn't  know  !  Why,  it  just 
seems  that  when  you  go  to  Oxford,  you  leave  the  wits  you  had 
before,  behind  !  And  then  —  of  course  "  —  Betty  affected  a  deli- 
cate hesitation  —  "  there's  the  difficulty  of  being  quite  sure  that 
you'll  ever  get  any  new  ones  !  —  but  there  —  look  !  —  I'm  in 
despair !  —  she's  vanished  —  and  I  shall  never  know !  " 

"  One  moment ! "  said  Raeburn,  smiling,  "  and  I  will  take  you 
in  pursuit.     She  has  only  gone  into  the  tea-room." 

His  hand  touched  Marcella's. 

"  Just  a  little  better,"  he  said,  with  a  sudden  change  of  look,  in 
answer  to  Lady  Winterbourne's  question.  "  The  account  to-night 
is  certainly  brighter.  They  begged  me  -not  to  come,  or  I  should 
have  been  off  some  days  ago.  And  next  week,  I  am  thankful  to 
say,  they  will  be  home." 

Why  should  she  be  standing  there,  so  inhumanly  still  and 
silent?  —  MarceUa  asked  herself.     Why  not  take  courage  again  — 


CHAP.    XII 


MARCELLA  441 


join  in  —  talk  —  show  sympathy  ?  But  the  words  died  on  her  lips. 
After  to-night  —  thank  heaven!  —  she  need  hardly  see  him  again. 

He  asked  after  herself  as  usual.  Then,  just  as  he  was  turning 
away  with  Betty,  he  came  back  to  her,  unexpectedly. 

"  T  should  like  to  tell  you  about  Hallin,"  he  said  gently.  "  His 
sister  writes  to  me  tiiat  she  is  happier  about  him,  and  that  she 
hopes  to  be  able  to  keep  him  away  another  fortnight.  They  are 
at  Keswick." 

For  an  instant  there  was  pleasure  in  the  implication  of  common 
ground,  a  common  interest  —  here  if  nowhere  else.  Then  the 
pleasure  was  lost  in  the  smart  of  her  own  strange  lack  of  self- 
government  as  she  made  a  rather  stupid  and  awkward  reply. 

Raeb urn's  eyes  rested  on  her  for  a  moment.  There  was  in  them 
a  flash  of  involuntary  expression,  which  she  did  not  notice  —  for 
she  had  turned  aw aj^  —  which  no  one  saw  —  except  Betty.  Then 
the  child  followed  him  to  the  tea-room,  a  little  pale  and  pensive. 

Marcella  looked  after  them. 

In  the  midst  of  the  uproar  about  her,  the  babel  of  talk  fighting 
against  the  Hungarian  band,  which  was  playing  its  wildest  and 
loudest  in  the  tea-room,  she  was  overcome  by  a  sudden  rush  of 
memory.  Her  eyes  were  tracing  the  passage  of  those  two  figures 
through  the  crowd ;  the  man  in  his  black  court  suit,  stooping  his 
refined  and  grizzled  head  to  the  girl  beside  him,  or  turning  every 
now  and  then  to  greet  an  acquaintance,  with  the  manner — cordial 
and  pleasant,  yet  never  quite  gay  even  when  he  smiled  —  that  she, 
Marcella,  had  begun  to  notice  of  late  as  a  new  thing ;  the  girl  lift- 
ing her  small  face  to  him,  the  gold  of  her  hair  showing  against  his 
velvet  sleeve.  But  the  inward  sense  was  busy  with  a  number  of 
other  impressions,  past,  and,  as  it  now  seemed,  incredible. 

The  little  scene  when  Aldous  had  given  her  the  pearls,  returned 
so  long  ago  —  why !  she  could  see  the  fire  blazing  in  the  Stone 
Parlour,  feel  his  arm  about  her !  —  the  drive  home  after  the 
Gairsley  meeting  —  that  poignant  moment  in  his  sitting-room  the 
night  of  the  ball  —  his  face,  his  anxious,  tender  face,  as  she  came 
down  the  wide  stairs  of  the  Court  towards  him  on  that  terrible 
evening  when  she  pleaded  with  him  and  his  grandfather  in  vain  : 
—  had  these  things,  incidents,  relations,  been  ever  a  real  part  of 
the  living  world  ?  Impossible !  Why,  there  he  was  —  not  ten  yards 
from  her  —  and  yet  more  irrevocably  separate  from  her  than  if 
the  Sahara  stretched  between  them.  The  note  of  cold  distance  in 
his  courteous  manner  put  her  further  from  him  than  the  merest 
stranger. 

Marcella  felt  a  sudden  terror  rush  through  her  as  she  blindly 
followed  Lady  Winterbourne  ;  her  limbs  trembled  under  her  ;  she 
took  advantage  of  a  conversation  between  her  companion  and  the 


442  MARCELLA  book  hi 

master  of  the  house  to  sink  down  for  a  moment  on  a  settee,  where 
she  felt  out  of  sight  and  notice. 

What  was  this  intolerable  sense  of  loss  and  folly,  this  smarting 
emptiness,  this  rage  with  herself  and  her  life  ?  She  only  knew 
that  whereas  the  touch,  the  eye  of  Aldous  Raeburn  had  neither 
compelled  nor  thrilled  her,  so  long  as  she  possessed  his  whole 
heart  and  life  —  noio  —  that  she  had  no  right  to  either  look  or 
caress ;  now  that  he  had  ceased  even  to  regard  her  as  a  friend, 
and  was  ah'eady  perhaps  making  up  that  loyal  and  serious  mind 
of  his  to  ask  from  another  woman  the  happiness  she  had  denied 
him;  now,  when  it  was  absurdly  too  late,  she  could  — 

Could  what  ?  Passionate,  wilful  creature  that  she  was  !  —  with 
that  breath  of  something  wild  and  incalculable  surging  through 
the  inmost  places  of  the  soul,  she  went  through  a  moment  of  suf- 
fering as  she  sat  pale  and  erect  in  her  corner  —  brushed  against 
by  silks  and  satins,  chatted  across  by  this  person  and  that — such 
as  seemed  to  bruise  all  the  remaining  joy  and  ease  out  of  life. 

But  only  a  moment !  Flesh  and  blood  rebelled.  She  sprang  up 
from  her  seat ;  told  herself  that  she  was  mad  or  ill ;  caught  sight 
of  Mr.  Lane  coming  towards  them,  and  did  her  best  by  smile  and 
greeting  to  attract  him  to  her. 

"  You  look  very  white,  my  dear  Miss  Boyce,"  said  that  cheerful 
and  fatherly  pei'son.  "  Is  it  that  tiresome  arm  still  ?  Now,  don't 
please  go  and  be  a  heroine  any  more  I  " 


CHAPTER  Xm 

Meanwhile,  in  the  tea-room,  Betty  was  daintily  sipping  her 
claret-cup,  while  Aldous  stood  by  her. 

"  No,"  said  Betty,  calmly,  looking  straight  at  the  lady  in  the 
tiara  who  was  standing  by  the  buffet,  "  she's  not  beautiful,  and 
I've  torn  my  dress  running  after  her.  There's  only  one  beautiful 
person  here  to-night !  " 

Aldous  found  her  a  seat,  and  took  one  himself  beside  her,  in  a 
corner  out  of  the  press.     But  he  did  not  answer  her  remark. 

"  Don't  you  think  so,  Mr.  Aldous  ?  "  said  Betty,  persisting,  but 
with  a  little  flutter  of  the  pulse. 

"  You  mean  Miss  Boyce  ?  "  he  said  quietly,  as  he  turned  to  her. 

"  Of  course !  "  cried  Betty,  with  a  sparkle  in  her  charming  eyes ; 
"  what  is  it  in  her  face  ?  It  excites  me  to  be  near  her.  One  feels 
that  she  will  just  have  lived  twice  as  much  as  the  rest  of  us  by  the 
time  she  comes  to  the  end.  You  don't  mind  my  talking  of  her, 
Mr.  Aldous  ?  " 

There  was  an  instant's  silence  on  his  part.     Then  he  said  in  a 


CHAP.  XIII  MARCELLA  443 

constrained  voice,  looking  away  from  his  companion,  "  I  don't  mind 
it,  but  I  am  not  going  to  pretend  to  you  that  I  find  it  easy  to  talk 
of  her." 

"  It  would  be  a  shame  of  you  to  pretend  anything,"  said  Betty, 
fervently,  "  after  all  I've  told  you  !  I  confessed  all  my  scrapes  to 
you,  turned  out  all  my  rubbish  bag  of  a  heart  —  well,  nearly  all  " 

—  she  checked  herself  with  a  sudden  flush —  "  And  you've  been  as 
kind  to  me  as  any  big  brother  could  be.  But  you're  dreadfully 
lofty,  Mr.  Aldous  !  You  keep  yourself  to  yourself.  I  don't  think 
it's  fair! " 

Aldous  laughed. 

"  My  dear  Miss  Betty,  haven't  you  found  out  by  now  that  I  am 
a  good  listener  and  a  bad  talker  V  I  don't  talk  of  myself  or  "  —  he 
hesitated  —  "  the  things  that  have  mattered  most  to  me  —  because, 
in  the  first  place,  it  doesn't  come  easy  to  me  —  and,  in  the  next,  I 
can't,  you  see,  discuss  my  own  concerns  without  discussing  other 
people's." 

"  Oh,  good  gracious  !  "  said  Betty,  "  what  you  must  have  been 
thinking  about  me  !    I  declare  I'll  never  tell  you  anything  again  !  " 

—  and,  beating  her  tiny  foot  upon  the  ground,  she  sat,  scarlet, 
looking  down  at  it. 

Aldous  made  all  the  smiling  excuses  he  could  muster.  He  had 
found  Betty  a  most  beguiling  and  attaching  little  companion,  both 
at  the  Court  in  the  Easter  recess,  and  during  the  Italian  journey. 
Her  total  lack  of  reserve,  or  what  appeared  so,  had  been  first  an 
amazement  to  him,  and  then  a  positive  pleasure  and  entertainment. 
To  make  a  friend  of  him  —  difficult  and  scrupulous  as  he  was,  and 
now  more  than  ever  —  a  woman  must  be  at  the  cost  of  most  of  the 
advances.  But,  after  the  first  evening  with  him,  Betty  had  made 
them  in  profusion,  without  the  smallest  demur,  though  perfectly 
well  aware  of  her  mother's  ambitions.  There  was  a  tie  of  cousin- 
ship  between  them,  and  a  considerable  difference  of  age.  Betty 
had  decided  at  once  that  a  mother  was  a  dear  old  goose,  and  that 
great  friends  she  and  Aldous  Raeburn  should  be  —  and,  in  a  sense, 
great  friends  they  were. 

Aldous  was  still  propitiating  her,  when  Lady  Winterbourne 
came  into  the  tea-room,  followed  by  Marcella.  The  elder  lady 
threw  a  hurried  and  not  very  happy  glance  at  the  pair  in  the 
corner.  Marcella  appeared  to  be  in  animated  talk  with  a  young 
journalist  whom  Raeburn  knew,  and  did  not  look  their  way. 

"Just  one  thing !"  said  Betty,  bending  forward  and  speaking 
eagerly  in  Aldous's  ear.  "  It  was  aU  a  mistake  —  wasn't  it?  Now 
I  know  her  I  feel  sure  it  was.  You  don't  —  you  don't  —  really 
think  badly  of  her  ?  " 

Aldous  heard  her  unwillingly.     He  was  looking  away  from  her 


444  MARCELLA  book  in 

towards  the  buffet,  when  she  saw  a  change  in  the  eyes  —  a  tight- 
ening of  the  lip  —  a  something  keen  and  hostile  in  the  whole  face. 

"  Perhaps  Miss  Boyce  will  be  less  of  a  riddle  to  all  of  us  before 
long  !  "  he  said  hastily,  as  though  the  words  escaped  him.  "  Shall 
we  get  out  of  this  very  uncomfortable  corner  ?  " 

Betty  looked  where  he  had  looked,  and  saw  a  young  man  greet- 
ing ]\Iarcella  with  a  manner  so  emphatic  and  intimate,  that  the 
journalist  had  instantly  moved  out  of  his  way.  The  young  man 
had  a  noticeable  pile  of  fair  curls  above  a  very  white  and  rounded 
forehead. 

"  Who  is  that  talking  to  Miss  Boyce  ?  "  she  asked  of  Aldous ;  "  I 
have  seen  him,  but  I  can't  remember  the  name." 

"  That  is  Mr.  Wharton,  the  member  for  one  of  our  divisions," 
said  Aldous,  as  he  rose  from  his  chair. 

Betty  gave  a  little  start,  and  her  brow  puckered  into  a  frown. 
As  she  too  rose,  she  said  resentfully  to  Aldous : 

"  Well,  you  have  snubbed  me  !  " 

As  usual,  he  could  not  find  the  effective  or  clever  thing  to  say. 

"  I  did  not  mean  to,"  he  replied  simply ;  but  Betty,  glancing  at 
him,  saw  something  in  his  face  which  gripped  her  heart.  A  lump 
rose  in  her  throat. 

"Do  let's  go  and  find  Ermjmtrude!  "  she  said. 

But  Wharton  had  barely  begun  his  talk  with  Marcella  when  a 
gentleman,  on  his  way  to  the  buffet  with  a  cup  to  set  down,  touched 
him  on  the  arm.  Whai'ton  turned  in  some  astonishment  and 
annoyance.  He  saw  a  youngish,  good-looking  man,  well  known  to 
him  as  already  one  of  the  inost  important  solicitors  in  London, 
largely  trusted  by  many  rich  or  eminent  persons. 

"  May  I  have  a  word  with  you  presently  ?  "  said  Mr.  Pearson,  in 
a  pleasant  undertone.  "  I  have  something  of  interest  to  say  to  you, 
and  it  occurred  to  me  that  I  might  meet  you  to-night.  Excuse  my 
interrupting  you." 

He  glanced  with  admiration  at  INIarcella,  who  had  turned  away. 

Wharton  had  a  momentary  qualm.  Then  it  struck  him  that 
Mr.  Pearson's  manner  was  decidedly  friendly. 

"  In  a  moment,"  he  said.  "  We  might  find  a  corner,  I  think,  in 
that  further  room." 

He  made  a  motion  of  the  head  towards  a  little  boudoir  which 
lay  beyond  the  tea-room. 

Mr.  Pearson  nodded  and  passed  on. 

Wharton  returned  to  Marcella,  who  had  fallen  back  on  Frank 
Leven.  At  the  approach  of  the  member  for  West  Brookshire, 
Lady  Winterbourne  and  her  daughter  had  moved  severely  away 
to  tlie  further  end  of  the  buffet. 


CHAP,  xin  MARCELLA  445 

"  A  tiresome  man  wants  me  on  business  for  a  moment,"  he  said ; 
then  he  dropped  his  voice  a  little;  "but  I  have  been  looking  for- 
ward to  this  evening,  this  chance,  for  days  —  shall  1  find  you  here 
again  in  five  minutes?" 

Marcella,  who  had  flushed  brightly,  said  that  would  depend  on 
the  time  and  Lady  Winterbourne.  He  hurried  away  with  a  little 
gesture  of  despair.     Frank  followed  him  with  a  sarcastic  eye. 

"  Any  one  would  think  he  was  prime  minister  already !  T  never 
met  him  yet  anywhere  that  he  hadn't  some  business  on  hand. 
Why  does  he  behave  as  though  he  had  the  world  on  his  shoulders  ? 
Your  real  swells  always  seem  to  have  nothing  to  do." 

"  Do  you  know  so  many  busy  people  ? "  Marcella  asked  him 
sweetly. 

"  Oh,  you  shan't  put  me  down,  Miss  Boyce ! "  said  the  boy, 
sulkily  thrusting  his  hands  into  his  pockets.  "  I  am  going  to 
work  like  blazes  this  winter,  if  only  my  dons  will  let  a  fellow 
alone.     I  say,  isn't  she  ripping  to-night  —  Betty  ?  " 

And,  pulling  his  moustache  in  helpless  jealousy  and  annoyance, 
he  stared  at  the  Winterbourne  group  across  the  room,  which  had 
been  now  joined  by  Aldous  Raeburn  and  Betty,  standing  side  by 
side. 

"  What  do  you  want  me  to  say  ? "  said  Marcella,  with  a  little 
cold  laugh.  "  I  shall  make  you  worse  if  I  praise  her.  Please  put 
my  cup  down." 

At  the  same  moment  she  saw  Wharton  coming  back  to  her  — 
Mr.  Pearson  behind  him,  smiling,  and  gently  twirling  the  seals  of 
his  watch-chain.  She  was  instantly  struck  by  Wharton's  look  of 
excitement,  and  by  the  manner  in  which  —  with  a  momentary 
glance  aside  at  the  Winterbourne  party  —  he  approached  her. 

"  There  is  such  a  charming  little  room  in  there,"  he  said,  stoop- 
ing his  head  to  her,  "  and  so  cool  after  this  heat.  Won't  vou  try 
it?" 

The  energy  of  his  bright  eye  took  possession  of  her.  He  led 
the  way ;  she  followed.  Her  dress  almost  brushed  Aldous  Raeburn 
as  she  passed. 

He  took  her  into  a  tiny  room.  There  was  no  one  else  there,  and 
he  found  a  seat  for  her  by  an  open  window,  where  they  were 
almost  hidden  from  view  by  a  stand  of  flowers. 

As  he  sat  down  again  by  her,  she  saw  that  a  decisive  moment 
had  come,  and  blanched  almost  to  the  colour  of  her  dress.  Oh ! 
what  to  do !  Her  heart  cried  out  vaguely  to  some  power  beyond 
itself  for  guidance,  then  gave  itself  up  again  to  the  wayward 
thirst  for  happiness. 

He  took  her  hand  strongly  in  both  his  own,  and  bending  towards 
her  as  she  sat  bowered  among  the  scent  and  colours  of  the  flowers, 


446  MARCELLA  book  hi 

he  made  her  a  passionate  declaration.  From  the  first  moment 
that  he  had  seen  her  under  the  Chiltern  beeches,  so  he  vowed,  he 
had  felt  in  her  the  supreme,  incomparable  attraction  which  binds 
a  man  to  one  woman,  and  one  only.  His  six  weeks  under  her 
father's  roof  had  produced  in  him  feelings  which  he  knew  to  be 
wrong,  without  thereby  finding  in  himself  any  power  to  check 
them.  They  had  betrayed  him  into  a  mad  moment,  which  he  had 
regretted  bitterly  because  it  had  given  her  pain.  Otherwise  — 
his  voice  dropped  and  shook,  his  hand  pressed  hers  —  "I  lived  for 
montlis  on  the  memory  of  that  one  instant."  But  he  had  respected 
her  suffering,  her  struggle,  her  need  for  rest  of  mind  and  body. 
For  her  sake  he  had  gone  away  into  silence ;  he  had  put  a  force 
upon  himself  which  had  alone  enabled  him  to  get  through  his 
parliamentary  work. 

Then,  with  his  first  sight  of  her  in  that  little  homely  room  and 
dress  —  so  changed,  but  so  lovely  ! — everything  —  admiration,  pas- 
sion —  had  revived  with  double  strength.  Since  that  meeting  he 
must  have  often  puzzled  her,  as  he  had  puzzled  himself.  His  life 
had  been  a  series  of  perplexities.  He  was  not  his  own  master  ;  he 
was  the  servant  of  a  cause,  in  which — however  foolishly  a  mock- 
ing habit  might  have  led  him  at  times  to  belittle  his  own  enthusi- 
asms and  hers  —  his  life  and  honour  were  engaged ;  and  this  cause 
and  his  part  in  it  had  been  for  long  hampered,  and  all  his  clearness 
of  vision  and  judgment  dimmed  by  the  pressure  of  a  number  of 
difficulties  and  worries  he  could  not  have  discussed  with  her  — 
worries  practical  and  financial,  connected  with  the  Clarion,  with 
the  experiments  he  had  been  carrying  out  on  his  estate,  and  with 
other  troublesome  m_atters.  He  had  felt  a  thousand  times  that 
his  fortunes,  political  or  private,  were  too  doubtful  and  perilous  to 
allow  him  to  ask  any  woman  to  share  them.  —  Then,  again,  he 
had  seen  her  —  and  his  resolution,  his  scruple,  had  melted  in  his 
breast ! 

Well !  there  were  still  troubles  in  front !  But  he  was  no  longer 
cowed  by  them.  In  spite  of  them,  he  dared  now  to  throw  himself 
at  her  feet,  to  ask  her  to  come  and  share  a  life  of  combat  and  of 
labour,  to  bring  her  beauty  and  her  mind  to  the  joint  conduct  of  a 
great  enterprise.  To  her  a  man  might  show  his  effort  and  his  toil, 
—  from  her  he  might  claim  a  sympathy  it  would  be  vain  to  ask  of 
any  smaller  woman. 

Then  suddenly  he  broke  down.  Speech  seemed  to  fail  him. 
Only  his  eyes  —  more  intense  and  piercing  under  their  straight 
brows  than  she  had  ever  known  them  —  beseeched  her — his  hand 
sought  lierL. 

She  meanwhile  sat  in  a  trance  of  agitation,  mistress  neither  of 
reason  nor  of  feeling.     She  felt  his  spell,  as  she  had  always  done. 


CHAP.  XIII  MARCELLA  447 

The  woman  in  her  thrilled  at  last  to  the  mere  name  and  neigh- 
bourhood of  love.  The  heart  in  her  cried  out  that  pain  and  loss 
could  only  be  deadened  so  —  the  past  could  only  be  silenced  by 
filling  the  present  with  movement  and  warm  life. 

Yet  what  tremoi's  of  conscience — what  radical  distrust  of  her- 
self and  him !  And  the  first  articulate  words  she  found  to  say  to 
him  were  very  much  what  she  had  said  to  Aldous  so  long  ago  — 
only  filled  with  a  bitterer  and  more  realised  content. 

"  After  all,  what  do  we  know  of  each  other !  You  don't  know 
me  —  not  as  I  am.     And  I  feel  —  " 

"  Doubts?"  he  said,  smiling.  "Do  you  imagine  that  that  seems 
anything  but  natural  to  me?  /  can  have  none;  hut  you — after 
all,  we  are  not  quite  boy  and  girl,  you  and  I ;  we  have  lived,  both 
of  us!  But  ask  yourself — has  not  destiny  brought  us  together ? 
Think  of  it  all !  "  "^ 

Their  eyes  met  again.  Hers  sank  under  the  penetration,  the 
flame  of  his.  Yet,  throughout,  he  was  conscious  of  the  doorway 
to  his  right,  of  the  figures  incessantly  moving  across  it.  His  own 
eloquence  had  convinced  and  moved  himself  abundantly.  Yet,  as 
he  saw  her  yielding,  he  was  filled  with  the  strangest  mixture  of 
passion  —  and  a  sort  of  disillusion  —  almost  contempt !  If  she 
had  turned  from  him  with  the  dignity  worthy  of  that  head  and 
brow,  it  flashed  across  him  that  he  could  have  tasted  more  of 
the  abandonment  of  love  —  have  explored  his  own  emotion  more 
perfectly. 

Still,  the  situation  was  poignant  enough  —  in  one  sense  com- 
plete.    Was  Raeburn  still  there  —  in  that  next  room  ? 

"My  answer?"  he  said  to  her,  pressing  her  hand  as  they  sat  in 
the  shelter  of  the  flowers.  For  he  was  aware  of  the  practical 
facts  —  the  hour,  the  place  —  if  she  was  not. 

She  roused  herself. 

"  I  can't,"  she  said,  making  a  movement  to  rise,  which  his 
strong  grasp,  however,  prevented.  "  T  can't  answer  you  to-night, 
Mr.  Wliarton.  I  should  have  much  to  think  over  —  so  much  !  It 
might  aU  look  quite  different  to  me.     You  must  give  me  time." 

"  To-morrow  ?  "  he  said  quietly. 

"  No  !  "  she  said  impetuously,  "not  to-morrow  ;  I  go  back  to  my 
work,  and  I  must  have  quiet  and  time.  In  a  fortnight  —  not 
before.     I  will  write." 

"  Oh,  impossible !  "  he  said,  with  a  little  frown. 

And  still  holding  her,  he  drew  her  towards  him.  His  gaze  ran 
over  the  face,  the  warm  whiteness  under  the  lace  of  the  dress,  the 
beautiful  arms.  She  shrank  from  it — feeling  a  sudden  movement 
of  dislike  and  fear ;  but  before  she  could  disengage  herself  he  had 
pressed  his  lips  on  the  arm  nearest  to  hirn. 


448  MARCELLA  book  in 

"  I  gave  jon  no  leave  !  "  she  said  passionately,  uudei  her  breath, 
as  he  let  lier  go. 

He  met  her  flashing  look  with  tender  humbleness. 

"  Marcellu  !  " 

The  word  was  j  ast  breathed  into  the  air.  She  wavered  —  yet  a 
chill  had  passed  over  her.  She  could  not  recover  the  moment  of 
magic. 

"■Not  to-morrow,"  she  repeated  steadily,  though  dreading  lest 
she  should  burst  into  tears,  "and  not  till  I  see  clearly  —  till  I 
can  —  "  She  caught  her  breath.  "  Now  I  am  going  back  to  Lady 
Winterbourne." 

CHAPTER  XIV 

For  some  hours  after  he  reached  his  own  room,  Wharton  sat 
in  front  of  his  open  window,  sunk  in  the  swift  rushing  of  thought, 
as  a  bramble  sways  in  a  river.  The  July  night  first  paled,  then 
flushed  into  morning ;  the  sun  rose  above  the  empty  street  and 
the  light  mists  enwrapping  the  great  city,  before  he  threw  himself 
on  his  bed,  exhausted  enough  at  last  to  fall  into  a  restless  sleep. 

The  speculation  of  those  quick-pulsed  hours  was  in  the  end 
about  equally  divided  between  Marcella  and  the  phrases  and 
turns  of  his  interview  with  Mr.  Pearson.  It  was  the  sudden  leap 
of  troubled  excitement  stirred  in  him  by  that  interview  —  height- 
ened by  the  sight  of  Raeburn  —  that  had  driven  him  past  recall  by 
the  most  natural  of  transitions,  into  his  declaration  to  Marcella. 

But  he  had  no  sooner  reached  his  room  than,  at  first  with  iron  will, 
he  put  the  thought  of  Marcella,  of  the  scene  which  had  just  passed, 
away  from  him.  His  pulses  were  still  quivering.  No  matter !  It 
was  the  brain  he  had  need  of.    He  set  it  coolly  and  keenly  to  work. 

Mr.  Pearson  ?  Well !  —  Mr.  Pearson  had  offered  him  a  bribe ; 
there  could  be  no  question  as  to  that.  His  clear  sense  never 
blinked  the  matter  for  an  instant.  Nor  had  he  any  illusions  as 
to  his  own  behaviour.  Even  now  he  had  no  further  right  to  the 
sleep  of  the  honest  man. 

Let  him  realise,  however,  what  had  happened.  He  had  gone  to 
Lady  Masterton's  party,  in  the  temper  of  a  man  who  knows  that 
ruin  is  upon  him,  and  determined,  like  the  French  criminal,  to 
exact  his  cigar  and  eau  de  vie  before  the  knife  falls.  Never  had 
things  looked  so  desperate ;  never  had  all  resource  seemed  to  him 
so  completely  exhausted.  Bankruptcy  must  come  in  the  course  of 
a  few  weeks ;  his  entailed  property  would  pass  into  the  hands  of  a 
receiver ;  and  whatever  recovery  might  be  ultimately  possible,  by 
the  end  of  August  he  would  be,  for  the  moment,  socially  and  politi- 
cally undone. 


CHAP.  XIV  MARCELLA  449 

There  could  be  no  question  of  his  proposing  seriously  to  Mar- 
cella  Boyce.  Nevertheless,  he  had  gone  to  Lady  Masterton's  on 
purpose  to  meet  her ;  and  his  manner  on  seeing  her  had  asserted 
precisely  the  same  intimate  claim  upon  her,  which,  during  the  past 
six  weeks,  had  alternately  attracted  and  repelled  her. 

Then  Mr.  Pearson  had  interrupted. 

Wharton,  shutting  his  eyes,  could  see  the  great  man  lean  against 
the  window-frame  close  to  the  spot  where,  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
later,  Marcella  had  sat  among  the  flowers  —  the  dapper  figure,  the 
long,  fair  moustaches,  the  hand  playing  with  the  eye-glass. 

"I  have  been  asked  —  er  —  er  —  "  What  a  conceited  manner 
the  fellow  had ! —  "to  get  some  conversation  with  you,  INIr.  Whar- 
ton, on  the  subject  of  the  Damesley  strike.     You  give  me  leave?" 

Whereupon,  in  less  than  ten  minutes,  the  speaker  had  executed 
an  important  commission,  and,  in  offering  Wharton  a  bribe  of  the 
most  bare-faced  kind,  had  also  found  time  for  supplying  him  with 
a  number  of  the  most  delicate  and  sufficient  excuses  for  taking  it. 

The  masters,  in  fact,  sent  an  embassy.  They  fully  admitted  the 
power  of  the  Clarion  and  its  owner.  No  doubt,  it  would  not  be 
possible  for  the  paper  to  keep  up  its  strike  fund  indefinitely ;  there 
were  perhaps  ah-eady  signs  of  slackening.  Still  it  had  been  main- 
tained for  a  considerable  time  ;  and  so  long  as  it  was  .sckoned  on, 
in  spite  of  the  wide-spread  misery  and  suffering  now  prevailing,  the 
men  would  probably  hold  out. 

In  these  circumstances,  the  principal  employers  concerned  had 
thought  it  best  to  approach  so  formidable  an  opponent  and  to  put 
before  him  information  which  might  possibly  modify  his  action. 
They  had  aiithorised  Mr.  Peai'son  to  give  him  a  full  account  of 
what  was  proposed  in  the  way  of  re-organisation  of  the  trade,  in- 
cluding the  probable  advantages  which  the  work-people  themselves 
would  be  likely  to  reap  from  it  in  the  future. 

Mr.  Pearson  ran  in  a  few  sentences  through  the  points  of  the 
scheme.  Wharton  stood  about  a  yard  away  from  him,  his  hands 
in  his  pockets,  a  little  pale  and  frowning  —  looking  intently  at  the 
speaker. 

Then  Mr.  Pearson  paused  and  cleared  his  throat. 

Well !  —  that  was  the  scheme.  His  principals  believed  that, 
when  both  it  and  the  employers'  determination  to  transfer  their 
business  to  the  Continent  rather  than  be  beaten  by  the  men  were 
made  fully  known  to  the  owner  of  the  Clarion,  it  must  affect  his 
point  of  view.  Mr.  Pearson  was  empowered  to  give  him  any  de- 
tails he  might  desire.  ISIeanwhile  —  so  confident  were  they  in  the 
reasonableness  of  the  case  that  they  even  suggested  that  the  owner 
of  the  Clarion  himself  sliould  take  part  in  the  new  Syndicate.  On 
condition  of  his  future  co-operation  — it  being  understood  that  the 
2g 


450  MARCELLA  book  hi 

master^  took  their  stand  irrevocably  on  the  award — the  men  at 
present  responsible  for  the  formation  of  the  Syndicate  proposed  to 
allot  Mr.  Wharton  ten  Founder's  shares  in  the  new  undertaking. 

Wharton,  sitting  alone,  recalling  these  things,  was  conscious 
again  of  that  start  in  every  limb,  that  sudden  rush  of  blood  to  the 
face,  as  though  a  lash  had  struck  him. 

For  in  a  few  seconds  his  mind  took  in  the  situation.  Only  the 
day  before,  a  city  acquaintance  had  said  to  him,  "  If  you  and  your 
confounded  pajser  were  out  of  the  way,  and  this  thing  could  be 
placed  properly  on  the  market,  there  would  be  a  boom  in  it  at  once. 
I  am  told  that  in  twenty-four  hours  the  Founder's  Shares  would  be 
worth  2,000Z.  apiece  !  " 

There  was  a  pause  of  silence.  Then  Wharton  threw  a  queer 
dark  look  at  the  solicitor,  and  was  conscious  that  his  pulse  was 
thumping. 

"  There  can  be  no  question  I  think,  Mr.  Pearson  —  between  you 
and  me  —  as  to  the  nature  of  such  a  proposal  as  that !  " 

"My  dear  sir,"  Mr.  Pearson  had  interrupted  hastily,  "let  me, 
above  all,  ask  you  to  take  time  —  time  enough,  at  any  rate,  to  turn 
the  matter  well  over  in  your  mind.  The  interests  of  a  great  many 
people,  besides  yom'seK,  are  concerned.  Don't  give  me  an  answer 
to-night;  it  is  the  last  thing  I  desire.  I  have  thrown  out  my  sug- 
gestion. Consider  it.  To-morrow  is  Sunday.  If  you  are  disposed 
to  carry  it  further,  come  and  see  me  Monday  morning  — that's  all. 
I  will  be  at  your  service  at  any  hour,  and  I  can  then  give  you  a 
much  more  complete  outline  of  the  intentions  of  the  Company. 
Now  I  really  must  go  and  look  for  Mrs.  Pearson's  carriage.". 

Wharton  followed  the  great  man  half  mechanically  across  the 
little  room,  his  mind  in  a  whirl  of  mingled  rage  and  desii'e.  Then 
suddenly  he  stopped  his  companion  : 

"  Has  George  Denny  anything  to  do  with  this  proposal,  Mr. 
Pearson  ?  " 

Mr.  Pearson  paused,  with  a  little  air  of  vague  cogitation. 

"  George  Denny?  Mr.  George  Denny,  the  member  for  Westropp  ? 
I  have  had  no  dealings  whatever  with  that  gentleman  in  the  matter." 

Wharton  let  him  pass. 

Then  as  he  himself  entered  the  tea-room,  he  perceived  the  bend- 
ing form  of  Aldous  Raeburn  chatting  to  Lady  Winterbourne  on 
his  right,  and  that  tall  whiteness  close  in  front,  waiting  for  him. 

His  brain  cleared  in  a  flash.  He  was  perfectly  conscious  that  a 
bribe  had  just  been  offered  him,  of  the  most  daring  and  cynical 
kind,  and  that  he  had  received  the  offer  in  the  tamest  way.  An 
insult  had  been  put  upon  him  which  had  for  ever  revealed  the 
estimate  held  of  him  by  certain  shrewd  people,  for  ever  degraded 
him  in  his  own  eyes. 


CHAP.  XIV  MARCELLA  451 

Nevertheless,  he  was  also  conscious  that  the  thmg  was  doue.  The 
bribe  would  be  accepted,  the  risk  taken.  So  far  as  his  money- 
jnatters  were  concerned  he  was  once  more  a  free  man.  The  mind 
had  adjusted  itself,  reached  its  decision  in  a  few  minutes. 

And  the  first  effect  of  the  mingled  excitement  and  self-contempt 
which  the  decision  brought  with  it  had  been  to  drive  him  into  the 
scene  with  Marcella.  Instinctively  he  asked  of  passion  to  deliver 
him  quickly  from  the  smart  of  a  new  and  very  disagreeable 
experience. 

Well !  why  should  he  not  take  these  men's  offer  ? 

He  was  as  much  convinced  as  they  that  this  whole  matter  of  the 
strike  had  of  late  come  to  a  deadlock.  So  long  as  the  public  would 
give,  the  workers,  passionately  certain  of  the  justice  of  their  own 
cause,  and  filled  with  new  ambitions  after  more  decent  living, 
would  hold  out.  On  the  other  hand,  he  perfectly  understood  that 
the  masters  had  also  in  many  ways  a  strong  case,  that  they  had 
been  very  hard  hit  by  the  strike,  and  that  many  of  them  would 
rather  close  their  works  or  transfer  them  bodily  to  the  Continent 
than  give  way.  Some  of  the  facts  Pearson  had  found  time  to 
mention  had  been  certainly  new  and  striking. 

At  the  same  time  he  never  disguised  from  himself  for  an  instant 
that  but  for  a  prospective  20,000/.  the  facts  concerned  would  not 
have  affected  him  in  the  least.  Till  to-night  it  had  been  to  his 
interest  to  back  the  strike,  and  to  harass  the  employers.  Now 
things  were  changed;  and  he  took  a  curious  satisfaction  in 
the  quick  movements  of  his  own  intelligence,  as  his  thought 
rapidly  sketched  the  "  curve  "  the  Clarion  would  have  to  take, 
and  the  arguments  by  which  he  would  commend  it. 

As  to  his  shares,  they  would  be  convertible  of  course  into  im- 
mediate cash.  Some  men  of  straw  would  be  forthcoming  to  buy 
what  he  would  possess  in  the  name  of  another  man  of  straw.  It 
was  not  supposed — he  took  for  granted  —  by  the  men  who  had 
dared  to  tempt  him,  that  he  would  I'isk  his  whole  political  repu- 
tation and  career  for  anything  less  than  a  bird  in  the  hand. 

Well !  what  were  the  chances  of  secrecy? 

Naturally  they  stood  to  lose  less  by  disclosure,  a  good  deal,  than 
he  did.  And  Denny,  one  of  the  principal  employers,  was  his  per- 
sonal enemy.  He  would  be  likely  enough  for  the  present  to  keep 
his  name  out  of  the  affair.  But  no  man  of  the  world  could  sup- 
pose that  the  transaction  would  pass  without  his  knowledge. 
Wharton's  own  hasty  question  to  Mr.  Pearson  on  the  subject 
seemed  to  himself  now,  in  cold  blood,  a  remarkably  foolish  one. 

He  walked  up  and  down  thinking  this  point  out.  It  was  the 
bitter  pill  of  the  whole  affair. 


452  MARCELLA  book  hi 

In  the  end,  with  a  sudden  recklessness  of  youth  and  resource  he 
resolved  to  dare  it.  There  would  not  be  much  risk.  Men  of 
business  do  not  as  a  rule  blazon  their  own  dirty  work,  and  public 
opinion  would  be  important  to  the  new  Syndicate. 

Some  risk,  of  course,  there  would  be.  Well !  his  risks,  as  they 
stood,  were  pretty  considerable.  He  chose  the  lesser  —  not  without 
something  of  a  struggle,  some  keen  personal  smart.  He  had  done 
a  good  many  mean  and  questionable  things  in  his  time,  but  never 
anything  as  gross  as  this.  The  thought  of  what  his  relation  to  a 
certain  group  of  men  —  to  Denny  especially  —  would  be  in  the 
future,  stung  sharply.  But  it  is  the  part  of  the  man  of  action 
to  put  both  scruple  and  fear  behind  him  on  occasion.  His  career 
was  in  question. 

Craven  ?  Well,  Craven  would  be  a  difficulty.  He  would  tele- 
graph to  him  first  thing  in  the  morning  before  the  offices  closed, 
and  see  him  on  Monday.  For  Marcella's  sake  the  man  must  be 
managed  —  somehow. 

And  —  Marcella !  How  should  she  ever  know,  ever  suspect ! 
She  already  disliked  the  violence  with  which  the  paper  had  sup- 
poi'ted  the  strike.  He  would  find  no  difficulty  whatever  in  justi- 
fying all  that  she  or  the  public  would  see,  to  her. 

Then  insensibly  he  let  his  thoughts  glide  into  thinking  of  the 
money.  Presently  he  drew  a  sheet  of  j^aper  towards  him  and 
covered  it  with  calculations  as  to  his  liabilities.  By  George ! 
how  well  it  worked  out !  By  the  time  he  threw  it  aside,  and 
walked  to  the  wdndow  for  air,  he  already  felt  himself  a  hond-Jide 
supporter  of  the  Syndicate  —  the  promoter  in  the  public  interest 
of  a  just  and  well-considered  scheme. 

Finally,  Vv-ith  a  little  joyous  energetic  movement  which  betrayed 
the  inner  man,  he  flung  down  his  cigarette,  and  turned  to  write  an 
ardent  letter  to  Marcella,  while  the  morning  sun  stole  into  the 
dusty  room. 

Difficult  ?  of  course !  Both  now  and  in  the  future.  It  would 
take  him  half  his  time  yet  —  and  he  could  ill  aiford  it  —  to  bring 
her  bound  and  captive.  He  recognised  in  her  the  southern  element, 
so  strangely  mated  with  the  moral  English  temper.  Yet  he 
smiled  over  it.  The  subtleties  of  the  struggle  he  foresaw  en- 
chanted him. 

And  she  would  be  mastered !  In  this  heightened  state  of  nerve 
his  man's  resolution  only  rose  the  more  fiercely  to  the  challenge 
of  her  resistance. 

Nor  should  she  cheat  him  with  long  delays.  His  income  would 
be  his  own  again,  and  life  decently  easy.  He  already  felt  himself 
the  vain  showman  of  her  beauty. 

A  thought  of  Lady  Selina  crossed  his  mind,  producing  amuse- 


CHAP.  XIV  MARCELLA  453 

ment  and  compassion  —  indulgent  amusement,  such  as  the  young 
man  is  apt  to  feel  towards  the  spinster  of  thirty-five  wiio  pays  him 
attention.  A  certain  sense  of  re-hal:)ilitation,  too,  which  at  the 
moment  was  particularly  welcome.  For,  no  doubt,  he  might  have 
married  her  and  her  fortune  had  he  so  chosen.  As  it  was,  why 
didn't  she  find  some  needy  boy  to  take  pity  on  her  ?  There  were 
plenty  going,  and  she  must  have  abundance  of  money.  Old 
Alresford,  too,  was  fast  doddering  off  the  stage,  and  then  where 
would  she  be  —  without  Alresford  House,  or  Busbridge,  or  those 
various  other  pedestals  which  had  hitherto  held  her  aloft? 

Early  on  Sunday  morning  Wharton  telegraphed  to  Craven, 
directing  him  to  "come  up  at  once  for  consultation."  The  rest 
of  the  day  the  owner  of  the  Clarion  spent  pleasantly  on  the  river 
with  Mrs.  Lane  and  a  party  of  ladies,  including  a  young  Dvichess, 
who  was  pretty,  literary,  and  socialistic.  At  night  he  went  down 
to  the  Clarion  office,  and  produced  a  leader  on  the  position  of 
affairs  at  Damesley  which,  to  the  practised  eye,  contained  one 
paragraph  —  but  one  only  —  whei'ein  the  dawn  of  a  new  policy 
might  have  been  discerned. 

Naturally  the  juxtaj^osition  of  events  at  the  moment  gave  him 
considerable  anxiety.  He  knew  very  well  that  the  Damesley  bar- 
gain could  not  be  kept  waiting.  The  masters  were  losing  heavily 
every  day,  and  were  not  likely  to  let  him  postpone  the  execution 
of  his  part  of  the  contract  for  a  fortnight  or  so  to  suit  his  own 
convenience.  It  was  like  the  sale  of  an  "  old  master."  His 
influence  must  be  sold  now  —  at  the  right  moment  —  or  not  at  all. 

At  the  same  time  it  was  very  awkward.  In  one  short  fortnight 
the  meeting  of  the  party  would  be  upon  him.  Surrender  on  the 
Damesley  question  would  give  great  offence  to  many  of  the  Labour 
members.  It  would  have  to  be  very  carefully' managed  —  very 
carefully  thought  out. 

By  eleven  o'clock  on  Monday  he  was  in  Mr.  Pearson's  office. 
After  the  first  involuntary  smile,  concealed  by  the  fair  moustaches, 
and  instantly  dismissed,  with  which  the  eminent  lawyer  greeted 
the  announcement  of  his  visitor's  name,  the  two  augurs  carried 
through  their  affairs  with  perfect  decorum.  Wharton  realised, 
indeed,  that  he  was  being  firmly  handled.  Mr.  Pearson  gave  the 
Clarion  a  week  in  which  to  accomplish  its  retreat  and  drop  its 
strike  fund.  And  the  fund  w^as  to  be  "  checked "  as  soon  as 
possible. 

A  little  later,  when  Wharton  abruj^tlj^  demanded  a  guarantee  of 
secrecy,  Mr.  Pearson  allowed  himself  his  first  —  visible  —  smile. 

"  JNIy  dear  sir,  are  such  things  generally  made  public  property  ? 
I  can  give  you  no  better  assurance  than  you  can  extract  yourself 


454  MARCELLA  book  hi 

from  the  circumstances.  As  to  wi'iting  —  well !  —  I  should  advise 
you  very  strongly  against  anything  of  the  sort.  A  long  experience 
has  convinced  me  that  in  any  delicate  negotiation  the  less  that  is 
tvritten  the  better." 

Towards  the  end  Wharton  turned  upon  his  companion  sharply, 
and  asked : 

"  How  did  you  discover  that  I  wanted  money  ?  " 

Mr.  Pearson  lifted  his  eyebrows  pleasantly. 

"  Most  of  the  things  in  this  world,  Mr.  Wharton,  that  one  wants 
to  know,  can  be  found  out.  Now  —  I  have  no  wish  to  hurry  you 
—  not  in  the  least,  but  I  may  perhaps  mention  that  I  have  an 
important  appointment  directly.  Don't  you  think  —  we  might 
settle  our  business?" 

Wharton  was  half-hiimorously  conscious  of  an  inward  leap  of 
fury  with  the  necessities  which  had  given  this  man  —  to  whom  he 
had  taken  an  instantaneous  dislike  —  the  power  of  dealing  thus 
summarily  with  the  member  for  West  Brookshire.  However, 
there  was  no  help  for  it ;  he  submitted,  and  twenty  minutes  after- 
wards he  left  Lincoln's  Inn  carrying  documents  in  the  breast- 
pocket of  his  coat  which,  when  brought  under  his  bankers'  notice, 
would  be  worth  to  him  an  immediate  advance  of  some  eight  thou- 
sand pounds.  The  remainder  of  the  purchase-money  for  his 
"  shares  "  would  be  paid  over  to  him  as  soon  as  his  part  of  the  con- 
tract had  been  carried  oiit. 

He  did  not,  however,  go  to  his  bank,  but  straight  to  the  Clarion 
office,  where  he  had  a  mid-day  appointment  with  Louis  Craven. 

At  first  sight  of  the  tall,  narrow-shouldered  form  and  anxious 
face  waiting  for  him  in  his  private  room,  Wharton  felt  a  move- 
ment of  ill-humour. 

Craven  had  the  morning's  Clarion  in  his  hand. 

"  This  cannot  mean  "  — he  said,  when  they  had  exchanged  a  brief 
salutation  —  "  that  the  paper  is  backing  out?  " 

He  pointed  to  the  suspicious  paragraph  in  Wharton's  leader, 
his  delicate  featiu'es  quivering  with  an  excitement  he  could  ill 
repi-ess. 

"  Well,  let  us  sit  down  and  discuss  the  thing,"  said  Wharton, 
closing  the  door,  "that's  what  I  wired  to  you  for." 

He  offered  Craven  a  cigarette,  which  was  refused,  took  one  him- 
self, and  the  two  men  sat  confronting  each  other  with  a  writing- 
table  between  them.  Wharton  was  disagreeably  conscious  at  times 
of  the  stiff  papers  in  his  coat-pocket,  and  was  perhaps  a  little  paler 
than  usual.  Otherwise  he  showed  no  trace  of  mental  disturbance; 
and  Craven,  himself  jaded  and  sleepless,  was  struck  with  a  momen- 
tary perception  of  his  companion's  boyish  good  looks  —  the  tum- 
bling curls,  that  Wharton  straightened  now  and  then,  the  charming 


CHAi>.   XIV  MARCELLA  456 

blue  eyes,  the  athlete's  frame.  Any  stranger  would  have  taken 
Craven  for  the  older  man  ;  in  reality  it  was  the  other  way. 

The  conversation  lasted  nearly  an  hour.  Craven  exhausted  both 
argument  and  entreaty,  though  when  the  completeness  of  the 
retreat  resolved  upon  had  been  disclosed  to  him,  the  feeling  roused 
in  him  was  so  fierce  that  he  could  barely  maintain  his  composure. 
He  had  been  living  among  scenes  of  starvation  and  endurance, 
which,  to  his  mind,  had  all  the  character  of  martyrdom.  These 
men  and  women  were  struggling  for  two  objects  —  the  power  to 
live  more  humanly,  and  the  free  right  of  combination  —  to  both 
of  which,  if  need  were,  he  would  have  given  his  own  life  to  help 
them  without  an  instant's  hesitation.  Behind  his  blinking  manner 
he  saw  everything  with  the  idealist's  intensity,  the  reformer's 
passion.  To  be  fair  to  an  employer  was  not  in  his  power.  To 
spend  his  last  breath,  were  it  called  for,  in  the  attempt  to  succour 
the  working  man  against  his  capitalist  oppressors,  would  have 
seemed  to  him  the  merest  matter  of  course. 

And  his  mental  acuteness  was  quite  equal  to  his  enthusiasm, 
and  far  more  evident.  In  his  talk  with  Wharton,  he  for  a  long 
time  avoided,  as  before,  out  of  a  certain  inner  disdain,  the  smallest 
touch  of  sentiment.  He  pointed  out  —  what,  indeed,  Whai-ton 
well  knew  —  that  the  next  two  or  three  weeks  of  the  strike  would 
be  the  most  critical  period  in  its  history ;  that,  if  the  work-people 
could  only  be  carried  through  them,  they  were  almost  sure  of 
victory.  He  gave  his  own  reasons  for  believing  that  the  employers 
could  ultimately  be  coerced,  he  offered  proof  of  yielding  among 
them,  proof  also  that  the  better  men  in  their  ranks  were  fully 
alive  to  and  ashamed  of  the  condition  of  the  workers.  As  to  the 
Syndicate,  he  saw  no  objection  to  it,  provided  the  workers'  claims 
were  first  admitted.  Otherwise  it  would  only  prove  a  more  jjower- 
ful  engine  of  oppression. 

Wharton's  arguments  may  perhaps  be  left  to  the  imagination. 
He  would  have  liked  simply  to  play  the  proprietor  and  the  master 
—  to  say,  "This  is  my  decision,  those  are  my  terms  —  take  my 
work  or  leave  it."  But  Craven  was  Miss  Boyce's  friend;  he  M'as 
also  a  Venturist.  Chafing  under  both  facts,  Wharton  found  that 
he  must  state  his  case. 

And  he  did  state  it  with  his  usual  ability.  He  laid  great  stress 
on  "  information  from  a  private  source  which  I  cannot  disregard," 
to  the  effect  that,  if  the  resistance  went  on,  the  trade  would  be 
broken  up ;  that  several  of  the  largest  employers  were  on  the 
point  of  nuiking  arrangements  for  Italian  factories. 

"  I  know,"  he  said  finally,  "  that  but  for  the  Clarion  the  strike 
woidd  drop.  Well !  I  have  come  to  the  •  conclusion  that  the 
responsibility  is  too  heavy.     I  shall  be  doing  the  men  themselves 


456  MARCELLA  book  hi 

more  harm  than  good.  There  is  the  case  in  a  nutshell.  We 
differ  —  I  can't  help  that.     The  responsibility  is  mine." 

Craven  rose  with  a  quick,  nervous  movement.  Tlie  jjrophet 
spoke  at  last. 

"  You  understand,"  he  said,  laying  a  thin  hand  on  the  table, 
"that  the  condition  of  the  workers  in  this  trade  is  infamous!  — 
that  the  award  and  your  action  together  plunge  them  back  into  a 
state  of  things  which  is  a  shame  and  a  curse  to  England  !  " 

Wharton  made  no  answer.  He,  too,  had  risen,  and  was  putting 
away  some  papers  in  a  drawer.  A  tremor  ran  through  Craven's 
tall  frame ;  and  for  an  instant,  as  his  eye  rested  on  his  companion, 
the  idea  of  foul  play  crossed  his  mind.  He  cast  it  out,  that  he 
might  deal  calmly  with  his  own  position. 

"  Of  course,  you  perceive,"  he  said,  as  he  took  up  his  hat,  "  that 
I  can  no  longer  on  these  terms  remain  the  Clarion's  correspondent. 
Somebody  else  must  be  found  to  do  this  business." 

"I  regret  your  decision,  immensely,"  said  Wharton,  with  perfect 
suavity,  "  but  of  course  I  understand  it.  I  trust,  however,  that  you 
will  not  leave  us  altogether.  I  can  give  you  plenty  of  work  that 
will  suit  you.  Here,  for  instance  "  —  he  pointed  to  a  pile  of  Blue 
Books  from  the  Labour  Commission  lying  on  the  table  —  "  are  a 
number  of  reports  that  want  analysing  and  putting  before  the 
public.     You  could  do  them  in  town  at  your  leisure." 

Craven  struggled  with  himself.  His  first  instinct  was  to  fling 
the  offer  in  Wharton's  face.  Then  he  thought  of  his  wife  ;  of  the 
tiny  new  household  just  started  with  such  small,  happy,  self-deny- 
ing shifts ;  of  the  woman's  inevitable  lot,  of  the  hope  of  a  child. 

"Thank  you,"  he  said,  in  a  husky  voice.  "I  will  consider,  I 
will  write." 

Wharton  nodded  to  him  pleasantly,  and  he  went. 

The  owner  of  the  Clarion  drew  a  long  breath. 

"  Now  I  think  on  the  whole  it  would  serve  my  purpose  best  to 
sit  down  and  write  to  her  —  after  that.  It  would  be  well  that  my 
account  should  come  first." 

A  few  hours  later,  after  an  interview  with  his  bankers  and  a 
further  spell  of  letter-writing,  Wharton  descended  the  steps  of  his 
club  in  a  curious  restless  state.  The  mortgage  on  the  Clarion 
had  been  arranged  for,  his  gambling  debts  settled,  and  all  his 
other  money  matters  were  successfully  in  train.  Nevertheless, 
the  exhilaration  of  the  morning  had  passed  into  misgiving  and 
depression. 

Vague  presentiments  hung  about  him  all  day,  whether  in  the 
House  of  Commons  or  elsewhere,  and  it  was  not  till  he  found  him- 
self on  his  legs  at  a  crowded  meeting  at  Rotherhithe,  violently 
attacking  the  Government  Bill  and  the  House  of  Lords,  that  he 


CHAP.  XIV  MARCELLA  457 

recovered  that  easy  confidence  in  tlie  general  favourableness  of  the 
universe  to  Harry  Wharton,  and  Harry  Wharton's  plans,  which 
lent  him  so  much  of  his  power. 

A  letter  from  Marcella  —  written  before  she  had  received  either 
of  his  —  reached  him  at  the  House  just  before  he  stai'ted  for  his 
meeting.  A  touching  letter! — yet  with  a  certain  resolution  in  it 
which  disconcerted  him. 

"  Forget,  if  you  will,  everything  that  you  said  to  me  last  night. 
It  might  be  —  I  believe  it  would  be  —  best  for  us  both.  But  if  you 
will  not  —  if  I  must  give  my  answer,  then,  as  I  said,  I  must  have 
time.  It  is  only  quite  recently  that  I  have  realised  the  enormity 
of  what  I  did  last  year.  I  must  run  no  risks  of  so  wrenching  ray 
own  life  —  or  another's  —  a  second  time.  Not  to  be  sure  is  for  me 
torment.  Why  perfect  simplicity  of  feeling  —  which  would  scorn 
the  very  notion  of  questioning  itself  —  seems  to  be  beyond  me,  I 
do  not  know.  That  it  is  so  fills  me  with  a  sort  of  shame  and  bit- 
terness.    But  I  must  follow  my  nature, 

"  So  let  me  think  it  out.  I  believe  you  know,  for  one  thing,  that 
your  'cause,'  your  life-work,  attracts  me  strongly.  I  should  not 
any  longer  accept  all  you  say,  as  I  did  last  year.  But  mere  opin- 
ion matters  infinitely  less  to  me  than  it  did.  I  can  imagine  now 
agreeing  with  a  friend  '  in  everything  except  opinion.'  All  that 
would  matter  to  me  now  would  be  to  feel  that  your  heart  was 
wholly  in  your  work,  in  your  public  acts,  so  that  I  might  still 
admire  and  love  all  that  I  might  differ  from.  But  there  —  for  we 
must  be  frank  with  each  other  —  is  just  my  difficulty.  Why  do 
you  do  so  many  contradictory  things?  Why  do  you  talk  of  the 
poor,  of  labour,  of  self-denial,  and  live  whenever  you  can  with  the 
idle  rich  people,  who  hate  all  three  in  their  hearts?  You  talk 
their  language ;  you  scorn  what  they  scorn,  or  so  it  seems ;  you 
accept  their  standards.  Oh!  —  to  the  really  ' consecrate  '  in  heart 
and  thought  I  could  give  my  life  so  easily,  so  slavishly  even ! 
There  is  no  one  weaker  than  I  in  the  world.  I  must  have  strength 
to  lean  upon  —  and  a  strength,  pure  at  the  core,  that  I  can  respect 
and  follow. 

"  Here  in  this  nursing  life  of  mine,  I  go  in  and  out  among  peo- 
ple to  the  best  of  whom  life  is  very  real  and  simple  —  and  often,  of 
course,  very  sad.  And  I  am  another  being  in  it  from  what  I  was 
at  Lady  Winterbourne's.  Everything  looks  differently  to  me.  No, 
no !  you  must  please  wait  till  the  inner  voice  speaks  so  that  I  can 
hear  it  plainly  —  for  your  sake  at  least  as  much  as  for  mine.  If 
you  persisted  in  coming  to  see  me  now,  I  should  have  to  put  an 
end  to  it  all." 

"  Strange  is  the  modern  woman  !  "  thought  "VVharton  to  himself, 
not  without  sharp  pique,  as  he  pondered  that  letter  in  the  course 


458  MARCELLA  book  hi 

of  his  drive  home  from  the  meeting.  "I  talk  to  her  of  passion, 
and  she  asks  me  in  return  why  I  do  things  inconsistent  with  my 
political  opinions!  puts  me  through  a  moral  catechism,  in  f ac(; ! 
AVhat  is  the  meaning  of  it  all  —  confovmd  it!  —  her  state  of  mind 
and  mine  ?  Is  the  good  old  ars  amandi  perishing  out  of  the  world  ? 
Let  some  Stendhal  come  and  tell  us  why !  " 

But  he  sat  up  to  answer  her,  and  could  not  get  free  from  an 
inward  pleading  or  wrestle  with  her,  which  haunted  him  through 
all  the  intervals  of  these  rapid  days. 

Life  while  they  lasted  was  indeed  a  gymnast's  contest  of  breath 
and  endurance.  The  Clarion  made  its  retreat  in  Wharton's  finest 
style,  and  the  fact  rang  through  labouring  England.  The  strike- 
leaders  came  up  from  the  Midlands ;  Wharton  had  to  see  them. 
He  was  hotly  attacked  in  the  House  privately,  and  even  publicly 
by  certain  of  his  colleagues.  Bennett  showed  concern  and  annoy- 
ance. Meanwhile  the  Conservative  papers  talked  the  usual  em- 
ployers' political  economy  ;  and  the  Liberal  papers,  whose  support 
of  the  strike  had  been  throughout  perfunctory,  and  of  no  particu- 
lar use  to  themselves  or  to  other  people,  took  a  lead  they  were  glad 
to  get,  and  went  in  strongly  for  the  award. 

Through  it  all  Wharton  showed  extraordinary  skill.  The  col- 
umns of  the  Clarion  teemed  with  sympathetic  appeals  to  the  strik- 
ers, flanked  by  long  statements  of  "hard  fact"  —  the  details  of 
foreign  competition  and  the  rest,  the  plans  of  the  masters  —  freely 
supplied  him  by  Mr.  Pearson.  With  Bennett  and  his  colleagues 
in  the  House  he  took  a  bold  line  ;  admitted  that  he  had  endangered 
his  popularity  both  inside  Parliament  and  out  of  it  at  a  particularly 
critical  moment ;  and  implied,  though  he  did  not  say,  that  some 
men  were  still  capable  of  doing  independent  things  to  their  own 
hurt.  Meanwhile  he  pushed  a  number  of  other  matters  to  the 
front,  both  in  the  paper  and  in  his  own  daily  doings.  He  made  at 
least  two  important  speeches  in  the  provinces,  in  the  course  of 
these  days,  on  the  Bill  before  the  House  of  Lords;  he  asked -ques- 
tions in  Parliament  on  the  subject  of  the  wages  paid  to  Govern- 
ment employes  ;  and  he  opened  an  attack  on  the  report  of  a  certain 
Conservative  Commission  which  had  been  rousing  the  particular 
indignation  of  a  large  mass  of  South  London  working  men. 

At  the  end  of  ten  days  the  strike  was  over ;  the  workers,  sullen 
and  enraged,  had  submitted,  and  the  plans  of  the  Syndicate  were 
in  all  the  papers.  Wharton,  looking  round  him,  realised  to  his 
own  amazement  that  his  political  position  had  rather  gained  than 
suffered.  The  general  impression  produced  by  his  action  had  been 
on  the  whole  that  of  a  man  strong  enough  to  take  aline  of  his  own, 
even  at  the  risk  of  unpopularity.  There  was  a  new  tone  of  respect 
among  his  opponents,  and,  resentful  as  some  of  the  Labour  mem- 


CHAP.  XIV  MARCELLA  459 

bers  were,  Wharton  did  not  believe  that  what  he  had  done  would 
ultimately  damage  his  chances  on  the  10th  at  all.  He  had  vindi- 
cated his  importance,  and  he  held  his  head  high,  adopting  towards 
his  chances  of  the  leadership  a  strong  and  careless  tone  that  served 
him  well. 

Meanwhile  there  were,  of  course,  clever  people  behind  the  scenes 
who  looked  on  and  laughed.  But  they  held  their  tongues,  and 
Wharton,  who  had  carefully  avoided  the  mention  of  names  during 
the  negotiations  with  Pearson,  did  his  best  to  forget  them.  He 
felt  uncomfortable,  indeed,  when  he  passed  the  portly  Denny  in 
the  House  or  in  the  street.  Denny  had  a  way  of  looking  at  the 
member  for  West  Brookshire  out  of  the  corner  of  a  small,  slit-like 
eye.  He  did  it  more  than  usual  during  these  days,  and  Wharton 
had  only  to  say  to  himself  that  for  all  things  there  is  a  price  — 
which  the  gods  exact. 

Wilkins,  since  the  first  disclosure  of  the  Clarion  change  of  policy, 
had  been  astonishingly  quiet.  Wharton  had  made  certain  of  vio- 
lent attack  from  him.  On  the  contrary,  Wilkins  wore  now  in  the 
House  a  subdued  and  pre-occupied  air  that  escaped  notice  even 
with  his  own  party  in  the  general  fulness  of  the  public  mind.  A 
few  caustic  north-count];yisms  on  the  subject  of  the  Clarion  and  its 
master  did  indeed  escape  him  now  and  then,  and  were  reported 
from  mouth  to  mouth  ;  but  on  the  whole  he  lay  very  low. 

Still,  whether  in  elation  or  anxiety,  Wharton  seemed  to  himself 
throughout  the  whole  period  to  be  a  fighter,  straining  every  muscle, 
his  back  to  the  wall  and  his  hand  against  every  man.  There  at 
the  end  of  the  fortnight  stood  the  three  goal-posts  that  must  be 
passed,  in  victory  or  defeat ;  the  meeting  that  would  for  the  present 
decide  his  parliamentary  prospects,  his  interview  with  Marcella, 
and  —  the  confounded  annual  meeting  of  the  "People's  Banking 
Company,"  with  all  its  threatened  annoyances. 

He  became,  indeed,  more  and  more  occupied  with  this  latter 
business  as  the  days  went  on.  But  he  could  see  noway  of  evading 
it.     He  would  have  to  fight  it ;  luckily,  now,  he  had  the  money. 

The  annual  meeting  took  place  two  days  before  that  fixed  for 
the  committee  of  the  Labour  party.  Wharton  was  not  present  at 
it,  and  in  spite  of  ample  warning  he  gave  way  to  certain  lively 
movements  of  disgust  and  depression  when  at  his  club  he  first  got 
hold  of  the  evening  papers  containing  the  reports.  His  name, 
of  course,  figured  amply  in  the  denunciations  heaped  upon  the 
directors  of  all  dates;  the  sums  which  he  with  others  were  sup- 
posed to  have  made  out  of  the  first  dealings  with  the  shares  on  the 
Stock  Exchange  were  freely  mentioned  ;  and  the  shareholders  as  a 
body  had  shown  themselves  most  uncomfortably  violent.  He  at 
once  wrote  off  a  letter  to  the  papers  disclaiming  all  responsibility 


460  MARCELLA  book  hi 

for  the  worst  irregularities  which  had  occurred,  and  courting  full 
enquiry  —  a  letter  which,  as  usual,  both  convinced  and  affected 
himself. 

Then  he  went,  restless  and  fuming,  down  to  the  House.  Bennett 
passed  him  in  the  lobby  with  an  uneasy  and  averted  eye.  Where- 
upon Wharton  seized  upon  him,  carried  him  into  the  Library, 
and  talked  to  him,  till  Bennett,  who,  in  spite  of  his  extraordinaiy 
shrewdness  and  judgment  in  certain  departments,  was  a  babe  in 
matters  of  company  finance,  wore  a  somewhat  cheered  countenance. 

They  came  out  into  the  lobby  together,  Wharton  holding  his 
head  very  high. 

"I  shall  deal  with  the  whole  thing  in  my  speech  on  Thursday  1" 
he  said  aloud,  as  they  parted. 

Bennett  gave  him  a  friendly  nod  and  smile. 

There  was  in  this  little  man,  with  his  considerable  brain  and 
his  poet's  heart,  something  of  the  "  imperishable  child."  Like  a 
wholesome  child,  he  did  not  easily  "  think  evil " ;  his  temper 
towards  all  men  —  even  the  owners  of  "way-leaves"  and  mining- 
royalties —  was  optimist.  He  had  the  most  naive  admiration  for 
Wharton's  ability,  and  for  the  academic  attainments  he  himself 
secretly  pined  for ;  and  to  the  young  complex  personality  itself  he 
had  taken  from  the  beginning  an  unaccountable  liking.  The 
bond  between  the  two,  though  incongruous  and  recent,  was  real ; 
Wharton  was  as  glad  of  Bennett's  farewell  kindness  as  Bennett 
had  been  of  the  younger  man's  explanations. 

So  that  during  that  day  and  the  next,  Bennett  went  about  con- 
tradicting, championing,  explaining;  while  Wharton,  laden  with 
parliamentary  business,  vivid,  unabashed,  and  resourceful,  let  it 
be  known  to  all  w'hom  it  concerned  that  in  his  solicitor's  opinion 
he  had  a  triumphant  answer  to  all  charges ;  and  that  meanwhile 
no  one  could  wonder  at  the  soreness  of  those  poor  devils  of  share- 
holders. 

The  hours  passed  on.  Wednesday  was  mainly  spent  by  Whar- 
ton in  a  series  of  conferences  and  intrigues  either  at  the  House  or  at 
his  club ;  when  he  drove  home  exhausted  at  night  he  believed  that 
all  was  arranged  —  the  train  irrevocably  laid,  and  his  nomination 
to  the  chairmanship  of  the  party  certain. 

Wilkins  and  six  or  seven  others  would  probably  prove  irrecon- 
cilable ;  but  the  vehemence  and  rancour  shown  by  the  great 
Nehemiah  during  the  summer  in  the  pm'suit  of  his  anti-Wharton 
campaign  had  to  some  extent  defeated  themselves.  A  personal 
grudge  in  the  hands  of  a  man  of  his  type  is  not  a  formidable 
weapon.  Wharton  would  have  felt  perfectly  easy  on  the  subject 
but  for  some  odd  bits  of  manner  on  Wilkins's  part  during  the  last 
forty-eight  hours  —  whenever,  in  fact,  the  two  men  had  run  across 


CHAP.  XIV  MARCELLA  461 

each  other  in  the  House  —  marked  by  a  sort  of  new  and  insolent 
good  humour,  that  puzzled  him.  But  there  is  a  bravado  of  defeat. 
Yes  !  —  he  thought  Wilkins  was  disposed  of. 

From  his  present  point  of  ease  —  debts  paid,  banker  propitiated, 
income  assured  —  it  amazed  him  to  look  back  on  his  condition  of  a 
fortnight  before.  Had  the  Prince  of  Darkness  himself  offered  such 
a  bargain  it  must  have  been  accepted.  After  all  his  luck  had  held ! 
Once  get  through  this  odious  company  business  —  as  to  which, 
with  a  pleasing  consciousness  of  turning  the  tables,  he  had  per- 
emptorily instructed  Mr.  Pearson  himself — and  the  barque  of  his 
fortunes  was  assured. 

Then,  with  a  quick  turn  of  the  nund,  he  threw  the  burden  of 
affairs  from  him.  His  very  hopefulness  and  satisfaction  had 
softened  his  mood.  There  stole  upon  him  the  murmurs  and 
voices  of  another  world  of  thought  —  a  world  well  known  to  his 
versatility  by  report,  though  he  had  as  a  rule  small  inclination  to 
dwell  therein.  But  he  was  touched  and  shaken  to-night  by  his 
own  achievement.  The  heavenly  powers  had  been  unexpectedly 
kind  to  him,  and  he  was  half  moved  to  offer  them  something  in 
return. 

"  Do  as  you  are  done  by "  —  that  was  an  ethic  he  ixnderstood. 
And  in  moments  of  feeling  he  was  as  ready  to  apply  it  to  great 
Zeus  himself  as  to  his  friends  or  eiiemies  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. He  had  done  this  doubtf id  thing  —  but  why  should  it  ever 
be  necessary  for  him  to  do  another?  Vague  philosophic  yearn- 
ings after  virtue,  moderation,  patriotism,  crossed  his  mind.  The 
Pagan  ideal  sometimes  smote  and  fired  him,  the  Christian  never. 
He  could  still  read  his  Plato  and  his  Cicero,  whereas  gulfs  of 
unfathomable  distaste  rolled  between  him  and  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Perhaps  the  author  of  all  authors  for  whom  he  had  most 
relish  was  Montaigne.  He  would  have  taken  him  down  to-night 
had  there  been  nothing  more  kindling  to  think  of. 

Marcella!—  ah!  Marcella!  He  gave  himself  to  the  thought  of 
her  with  a  new  and  delightful  tenderness  which  had  in  it  elements 
of  compunction.  After  those  disagreeable  paragraphs  in  the  even- 
ing papers,  he  had  instantly  written  to  her.  "  Every  public  man  " 
—  he  had  said  to  hei',  finding  instinctively  th6  note  of  dignity  that 
would  appeal  to  her  —  "  is  liable  at  some  period  of  his  career  to 
charges  of  this  sort.  They  are  at  once  exaggerated  and  blackened, 
because  he  is  a  public  man.  To  you  I  owe  perfect  frankness,  and 
you  shall  have  it.  Meanwhile  I  do  not  ask  —  I  know  —  that  you 
will  be  just  to  me,  and  put  the  matter  out  of  your  thoughts  till  I 
can  discuss  it  with  you.  Two  days  more  till  I  see  your  face  !  The 
time  is  long  !  " 

To  this  there  had  been  no  answer.     Her  last  letter  indeed  had 


462  MARCELLA  book  hi 

rung  sadly  and  coldly.  No  doubt  Louis  Craven  had  something  to 
do  with  it.  It  would  have  alarmed  him  could  he  simply  have 
found  the  time  to  think  about  it.  Yet  she  was  ready  to  see  him 
on  the  11th;  and  his  confidence  in  his  own  powers  of  managing 
fate  was  tougher  than  ever.  What  pleasant  lies  he  had  told  her 
at  Lady  Masterton's  !  Well !  What  passion  ever  yet  but  had  its 
subterfuges?  One  more  wrestle,  and  he  would  have  tamed  her  to 
his  wish,  wild  falcon  that  she  was.  Then  —  pleasure  and  brave 
living !  And  she  also  should  have  her  way.  She  should  breathe 
into  him  the  language  of  those  great  illusions  he  had  found  it  of 
late  so  hard  to  feign  with  her  ;  and  they  two  would  walk  and  rule 
a  yielding  world  together.  Action,  passion,  affairs  —  life  explored 
and  exploited  —  and  at  last  —  "que  la  mori  me  treuve  plantant  mes 
choulx — mais  nonchalant  d'elle  !  —  et  encore  plus  demon  jardin  impar- 
fait !  " 

He  declaimed  the  words  of  the  great  Frenchman  with  something 
of  the  same  temper  in  which  the  devout  man  would  have  made  an 
act  of  faith.  Then,  with  a  long  breath  and  a  curious  emotion,  he 
went  to  try  and  sleep  himself  into  the  new  day. 


CHAPTER   XV 

The  following  afternoon  about  six  o'clock  Marcella  came  in 
from  her  second  round.  After  a  very  busy  week,  work  happened 
to  be  slack;  and  she  had  been  attending  one  or  two  cases  in  and 
near  Brown's  Buildings  rather  because  they  were  near  than  be- 
cause they  seriously  wanted  her.  She  looked  to  see  whether  there 
was  any  letter  or  telegram  from  the  office  which  would  have 
obliged  her  to  go  out  again.  Nothing  was  to  be  seen ;  and  she 
put  down  her  bag  and  cloak,  childishly  glad  of  the  extra  hour  of 
rest. 

She  was,  indeed,  pale  and  worn.  The  moral  struggle  which  had 
filled  the  past  fortnight  from  end  to  end  had  deepened  all  the 
grooves  and  strained  the  forces  of  life;  and  the  path,  though 
glimmering,  was  not  wholly  plain. 

A  letter  lay  unfinished  in  her  drawer  —  if  she  sent  it  that  night, 
there  would  be  little  necessity  or  inducement  for  Wharton  to  climb 
those  stairs  on  the  morrow.  Yet,  if  he  held  her  to  it,  she  must  see 
him. 

As  the  sunset  and  the  dusk  crept  on  she  still  sat  silent  and  alone, 
sunk  in  a  depression  which  showed  itself  in  every  line  of  the  droop- 
ing form.  She  was  degraded  in  her  own  eyes.  The  nature  of  the 
impulses  which  had  led  her  to  give  Wharton  the  hold  upon  her 
she  had  given  him  had  become  plain  to  her.     What  lay  between 


CHAP.  XV  MARCELLA  463 

them,  and  the  -worst  impulses  that  poison  the  lives  of  women,  but 
differences  of  degree,  of  expression?  After  those  wild  hours  of 
sensuous  revolt,  a  kind  of  moral  terror  was  upon  her. 

What  had  worked  in  her?  What  was  at  the  root  of  this  vehe- 
mence of  moral  reaction,  this  haunting  fear  of  losing  for  ever  the 
best  in  life  —  self-respect,  the  comradeship  of  the  good,  communion 
with  things  noble  and  unstained — which  had  conquered  at  last 
the  mere  looman,  the  weakness  of  vanity  and  of  sex  ?  She  hardly 
knew.  Only  there  was  in  her  a  sort  of  vague  thankfulness /or  her 
daily  work.  It  did  not  seem  to  be  possible  to  see  one's  own  life 
solely  under  the  aspects  of  selfish  desire  while  hands  and  mind 
were  busy  with  the  piteous  realities  of  sickness  and  of  death. 
From  every  act  of  service — from  every  contact  with  the  patience 
and  simplicity  of  the  poor  —  something  had  spoken  to  her,  that 
divine  ineffable  something  for  ever  "  set  in  the  world,"  like  beauty, 
like  charm,  for  the  winning  of  men  to  itself.  "  Follow^  truth ! "  it 
said  to  her  in  faint  mysterious  breathings  —  "the  truth  of  your 
own  heart.  The  sorrow  to  which  it  will  lead  you  is  the  only  joy 
that  remains  to  you." 

Suddenly  she  looked  round  her  little  room  with  a  rush  of  ten- 
derness. The  windows  were  open  to  the  evening  and  the  shouts 
of  children  playing  in  the  courtyard  came  floating  up.  A  bowl  of 
Mellor  roses  scented  the  air ;  the  tray  for  her  simple  meal  stood 
ready,  and  beside  it  a  volume  of  "  The  Divine  Comedy,"  one  of 
her  mother's  very  rare  gifts  to  her,  in  her  motherless  youth  — for 
of  late  she  had  turned  thirstily  to  poetry.  There  was  a  great 
peace  and  plainness  about  it  all ;  and,  besides,  touches  of  beauty 
—  tokens  of  the  soul.  Her  work  spoke  in  it ;  called  to  her ;  prom- 
ised comfort  and  ennobling.  She  thought  with  yearning,  too,  of 
her  parents ;  of  the  autumn  holiday  she  was  soon  to  spend  with 
them.  Her  heart  went  out  —  sorely — to  all  the  primal  claims 
upon  it. 

Nevertheless,  clear  as  was  the  inner  resolution,  the  immediate 
future  filled  her  with  dread.  Her  ignorance  of  herself  —  her 
excitable  folly  —  had  given  Wharton  rights  which  her  conscience 
admitted.  He  would  not  let  her  go  without  a  struggle,  and  she 
must  face  it. 

As  to  the  incidents  which  had  happened  during  the  fortnight  — 
Louis  Craven's  return,  and  the  scandal  of  the  "  People's  Banking 
Company  "  —  they  had  troubled  and  distressed  her ;  but  it  would 
not  be  true  to  say  that  they  had  had  any  part  in  shaping  her  slow 
determination.  Louis  Craven  was  sore  and  bitter.  She  was  very 
sorry  for  him;  and  his  reports  of  the  Dainesley  strikers  made  her 
miserable.     But  she  took  Wharton's  "  leaders  "  in  the  Clarion  for 


464  MARCELLA  book  hi 

another  equally  competent  opinion  on  the  same  subject ;  and  told 
herself  that  she  was  no  judge.  As  for  the  Company  scandal,  she 
had  instantly  and  proudly  responded  to  the  appeal  of  his  letter, 
and  put  the  matter  out  of  her  thoughts,  till  at  least  he  should  give 
his  own  account.  So  much  at  any  rate  she  owed  to  the  man  who 
had  stood  by  her  through  the  Hurd  trial.  Marcella  Boyce  would 
not  readily  believe  in  his  dishonour !  She  did  not  in  fact  believe 
it.  In  spite  of  later  misgivings,  the  impression  of  his  personality, 
as  she  had  first  conceived  it,  in  the  early  days  at  Mellor,  was  still 
too  strong. 

No  —  rather  —  she  had  constantly  recollected  throughout  the 
day  what  was  going  on  in  Parliament.  These  were  for  him  test- 
ing and  critical  hours,  and  she  felt  a  wistful  sympathy.  Let  him 
only  rise  to  his  part  —  take  up  his  great  task. 

An  imperious  knocking  on  her  thin  outer  door  roused  her.  She 
went  to  open  it  and  saw  Anthony  Craven  —  the  perspiration  stand- 
ing on  his  brow,  his  delicate  cripple's  face  white  and  fierce. 

"  I  want  to  talk  to  you,"  he  said  without  preface.  "  Have  you 
seen  the  afternoon  papers  ?  " 

"  No,"  she  said  in  astonishment,  "  I  was  just  going  to  send  for 
them.     What  is  wrong?  " 

He  followed  her  into  the  sitting-room  without  speaking;  and 
then  he  unfolded  the  Pall  Mall  he  had  in  his  hand  and  pointed 
to  a  large-print  paragraph  on  the  central  page  with  a  shaking 
hand. 

Marcella  read : 

"  EXCITIXG      SCEXES      IN      THE     HoUSE.  —  MEETING     OF      THE 

Labour  Members.  —  A  committee  of  the  Labour  representa- 
tives in  Parliament  met  this  afternoon  at  2  o'clock  for  the  pur- 
pose of  electing  a  chairman,  and  appointing  whips  to  the  party, 
thus  constituting  a  separate  parliamentary  group.  Much  interest 
was  felt  in  the  proceedings,  which  it  was  universally  supposed 
would  lead  to  the  appointment  of  Mr.  H.  S.  Wharton,  the  mem- 
ber for  West  Brookshire,  as  chairman  and  leader  of  the  Labour 
party.  The  excitement  of  the  meeting  and  in  the  House  may 
be  imagined  when  —  after  a  short  but  very  cordial  and  effective 
speech  from  Mr.  Bennett,  the  member  for  North  Whinwick,  in 
support  of  Mr.  Wharton's  candidature  —  Mr.  Wilkins,  the  miners' 
member  for  Derlingham,  rose  and  made  a  series  of  astounding 
charges  against  the  personal  honour  of  the  member  for  West  Brook- 
shire. Put  briefly,  they  amount  to  this  :  that  during  the  recent 
strike  at  Damesley  the  support  of  the  Clarion  newspaper,  of  which 
Mr.  Wharton  is  owner  aiid  practically  editor,  was  bought  by  the 
employers  in  return  for  certain  shares  in  the  new  Syndicate ;  that 


CHAP.  XV  MARCELLA  466 

the  money  for  these  shares  —  which  is  put  as  high  as  20,000^.  — 
had  ah-eady  gone  into  Mr.  Wiiarton's  private  pocket ;  and  that 
the  change  of  policy  on  tlie  part  of  the  Clarion,  which  led  to  the 
collapse  of  the  strike,  was  thus  entirely  due  to  what  the  Labour 
members  can  only  regai'd  under  the  circumstances  as  a  bribe  of  a 
most  disgraceful  kind.  The  effect  produced  lias  been  enormous. 
The  debate  is  still  proceeding,  and  reporters  have  been  excluded. 
But  I  hope  to  send  a  full  account  later." 

Marcella  dropped  the  paper  from  her  hand. 

"  What  does  it  mean  ?  "  she  said  to  her  companion. 

"Precisely  what  it  says,"  replied  Anthony,  with  a  nervous 
impatience  he  could  not  repress.  "  Now,"  he  added,  as  his  lame- 
ness forced  him  to  sit  down,  "will  you  kindly  allow  me  some 
conversation  with  you?  It  was  you  —  practically  —  who  intro- 
duced Louis  to  that  man.  You  meant  well  to  Louis,  and  Mr. 
Wharton  has  been  your  friend.  We  therefore  feel  that  we  owe 
yon  some  explanation.  For  that  paragraph  "  —  he  pointed  to  the 
paper  —  "is,  substantially  —  Louis's  doing,  and  mine." 

^^ Yours?"  she  said  mechanically.  "But  Louis  has  been  going 
on  working  for  the  paper  —  I  persuaded  him." 

"  I  know.  It  was  not  we  who  actually  discovered  the  thing. 
But  we  set  a  friend  to  work.  Louis  has  had  his  suspicions  all 
along.     And  at  last  —  by  the  merest  chance  —  we  got  the  facts." 

Then  he  told  the  story,  staring  at  her  the  while  with  his  spark- 
ling eyes,  his  thin  invalid's  fingers  fidgeting  with  his  hat.  If 
there  was  in  truth  any  idea  in  his  mind  that  the  relations  between 
his  companion  and  Harry  Wharton  were  more  than  those  of  friend- 
ship, it  did  not  avail  to  make  him  spare  her  in  the  least.  He  was 
absorbed  in  vindictive  feeling,  which  applied  to  her  also.  He 
might  say  for  form's  sake  that  she  had  meant  well ;  but  in  fact  he 
regarded  her  at  this  moment  as  a  sort  of  odious  Canidia  whose 
one  function  had  been  to  lure  Louis  to  misfortune.  Cut  off  him- 
self, by  half  a  score  of  peculiarities,  physical  and  other,  from  love, 
pleasure,  and  power,  Anthony  Craven's  whole  affections  and  ambi- 
tions had  for  years  centred  in  his  brother.  And  now  Loiiis  was 
not  only  violently  thrown  out  of  employment,  but  compromised 
by  the  connection  with  the  Clarion ;  was,  moreover,  saddled  with 
a  wife  —  and  in  debt. 

So  that  his  explanation  was  given  with  all  the  edge  he  could  put 
upon  it.  Let  her  stop  him,  if  she  pleased  !  —  but  she  did  not  stop 
him. 

The  facts  were  these  : 

Louis  had,  indeed,  been  persuaded  by  Marcella,  for  the  sake  of 
his  wife  and  bread  and  butter,  to  go  on  working  for  the  Clarion, 
as  a  reviewer.  But  his  mind  was  all  the  time  feverishly  occupied 
2h 


466  MARCELLA  uook  hi 

with  the  ajxjstasy  of  the  paper  and  its  causes.  Remembering 
Wharton's  sayings  and  letters  throughout  the  struggle,  he  grew 
less  and  less  able  to  explain  the  incident  by  the  reasons  Wharton 
had  himself  supplied,  and  more  and  more  convinced  that  there 
was  some  mystery  behind. 

He  and  Anthony  talked  the  matter  over  perpetually.  One  even- 
ing Anthony  brought  home  from  a  meeting  of  the  Venturists  that 
George  Denny,  the  son  of  one  of  the  principal  employers  in  the 
Damesley  trade,  whose  name  he  had  mentioned  once  before  in 
Marcella's  ears.  Denny  was  by  this  time  the  candidate  for  a  La- 
bour constituency,  an  ardent  Venturist,  and  the  laughing-stock  of 
his  capitalist  family,  with  whom,  however,  he  was  still  on  more  or 
less  affectionate  terms.  His  father  thought  him  an  incorrigible 
fool,  and  his  mother  wailed  over  him  to  her  friends.  But  they 
were  still  glad  to  see  him  whenever  he  would  condescend  to  visit 
them ;  and  all  friction  on  money  matters  was  avoided  by  the  fact 
that  Denny  had  for  long  refused  to  take  any  pecuniary  help  from 
his  father,  and  was  nevertheless  supporting  himself  tolerably  by 
lecturing  and  literature. 

Denny  was  admitted  into  the  brothers'  debate,  and  had  indeed 
puzzled  himself  a  good  deal  over  the  matter  already.  He  had  taken 
a  lively  interest  in  the  strike,  and  the  articles  in  the  Clarion  which 
led  to  its  collapse  had  seemed  to  him  both  inexplicable  and  enraging. 

After  his  talk  with  the  Cravens,  he  went  away,  determined  to 
diiae  at  home  on  the  earliest  possible  opportunity.  He  announced 
himself  accordingly  in  Hertford  Street,  was  received  with  open 
arms,  and  then  deliberately  set  himself,  at  dinner  and  afterwards, 
to  bait  his  father  on  social  and  political  questions,  which,  as  a  rule, 
were  avoided  between  them. 

Old  Denny  fell  into  the  trap,  lost  his  temper  and  self-control 
completely,  and  at  a  mention  of  Harry  Wharton  —  skilfully  intro- 
duced at  the  precisely  right  moment  —  as  an  authority  on  some 
matter  connected  with  the  current  Labour  programme,  he  threw 
himself  back  in  his  chair  with  an  angry  laugh. 

"  Wharton  ?     Wharton  ?    You  quote  that  fellow  to  me  ?  " 

"  Why  shouldn't  I?  "  said  the  son,  quietly. 

"  Because,  my  good  sir,  —  he's  a  rogue,  —  that's  all !  —  a  common 
rogue,  from  my  point  of  view  even  —  still  more  from  yours." 

"  I  know  that  any  vile  tale  you  can  believe  about  a  Labour 
leader  you  do,  father,"  said  George  Denny,  with  dignity. 

Whereupon  the  older  man  thrust  his  hand  into  his  coat-pocket, 
and  drawing  out  a  small  leather  case,  in  which  he  was  apt  to  carry 
important  papers  about  with  him,  extracted  from  it  a  list  con- 
taining names  and  figures,  and  held  it  with  a  somewhat  tremulous 
hand  under  his  son's  eyes. 


CHAP.  XV  MARCELLA  467 

"  Read  it,  sir !  and  hold  your  tongue !  Last  week  my  friends 
and  I  bought  that  man — and  his  precious  paper  —  for  a  trifle  of 
20,000/.  or  thereabouts.  It  paid  us  to  do  it,  and  we  did  it.  I  dare 
say  you  will  think  the  proceeding  questionable.  In  my  eyes  it  was 
perfectly  legitimate,  a  piece  of  honne  guerre.  The  man  was  ruining 
a  whole  industry.  Some  of  us  had  taken  his  measure,  had  found 
out  too  —  by  good  luck! — that  he  was  in  sore  straits  for  money 
—  mortgages  on  the  paper,  gambling  debts,  and  a  host  of  other 
things  —  discovered  a  shrewd  man  to  play  him,  and  made  our 
bid !  He  rose  to  it  like  a  gudgeon  —  gave  us  no  trouble  what- 
ever. I  need  not  say,  of  course  "  —  he  added,  looking  up  at  his 
son  — "  that  I  have  shown  you  that  paper  in  the  very  strictest 
confidence.  But  it  seemed  to  me  it  was  my  duty  as  a  father  to 
warn  you  of  the  nature  of  some  of  your  associates !  " 

"  I  understand,"  said  George  Denny,  as,  after  a  careful  study 
of  the  paper — which  contained,  for  the  help  of  the  writer's 
memory,  a  list  of  the  sums  paid  and  founders'  shares  allotted  to 
the  various  "  promoters  "  of  the  new  Syndicate  —  he  restored  it  to 
its  owner.  "  Well,  I,  father,  have  this  to  say  in  return.  I  came 
here  to-night  in  the  hope  of  getting  from  you  this  very  informa- 
tion, and  in  the  public  interest  I  hold  myself  not  only  free  but 
bound  to  make  public  use  of  it,  at  the  earliest  possible  oppor- 
tunity !  " 

The  family  scene  may  be  imagined.  But  both  threats  and 
blandishuT^nts  were  entirely  lost  vipon  the  son.  There  was  in  him 
an  idealist  obstinacy  which  listened  to  nothing  but  the  cry  of  a 
cause,  and  he  declared  that  nothing  would  or  should  prevent  him 
from  carrying  the  story  of  the  bribe  direct  to  Nehemiah  Wilkins, 
Wharton's  chief  rival  in  the  House,  and  so  saving  the  country  and 
the  Labour  party  from  the  disaster  and  disgrace  of  Wharton's 
leadership.  There  was  no  time  to  lose,  the  party  meeting  in  the 
House  was  only  two  days  off. 

At  the  end  of  a  long  struggle,  which  exhausted  everybody  con- 
cerned, and  was  carried  on  to  a  late  hour  of  the  night,  Denny  pere, 
influenced  by  a  desire  to  avoid  worse  things  —  conscioiis,  too,  of 
the  abimdant  evidence  he  possessed  of  Wharton's  acceptance  and 
private  use  of  the  money  —  and,  probably,  when  it  came  to  the 
point,  not  unwilling,  —  under  compulsion! — to  tumble  such  a 
hero  from  his  pedestal,  actually  wrote,  under  his  son's  advice,  a 
letter  to  Wilkins.  It  was  couched  in  the  most  cautious  language, 
and  professed  to  be  written  in  the  interests  of  Wharton  himself, 
to  put  an  end  "to  certain  ugly  and  unfounded  rumours  that  have 
been  brought  to  my  knowledge."  The  negotiation  itself  was 
described  in  the  driest  business  terms.  "  Mr.  Wharton,  upon 
cause  shown,  consented  to  take  part  in  the  founding  of  the  Syndi- 


468  MARCELLA  book  in 

cate,  and  in  return  for  his  assistance,  was  allotted  ten  founders' 
shares  in  the  new  company.  The  transaction  differed  in  nothing 
from  those  of  ordinary  business  "  —  a  last  sentence  slyly  added  by 
the  Socialist  son,  and  innocently  accepted  by  one  of  the  shrewdest 
of  men. 

After  which  Master  George  Denny  scarcely  slept,  and  by  nine 
o'clock  next  morning  was  in  a  hansom  on  his  way  to  Wilkins's 
lodgings  in  Westminster.  The  glee  of  that  black-bearded  patriot 
hardly  needs  description.  He  flung  himself  on  the  letter  with  a 
delight  and  relief  so  exuberant  that  George  Denny  went  off  to 
another  more  phlegmatic  member  of  the  anti-Wharton  "  cave," 
with  entreaties  that  an  eye  should  be  kept  on  the  member  for 
Derlingham,  lest  he  should  do  or  disclose  anything  before  the 
dramatic  moment. 

Then  he  himself  spent  the  next  forty-eight  hours  in  ingenious 
efforts  to  put  together  certain  additional  information  as  to  the 
current  value  of  founders'  shares  in  the  new  company,  the  nature 
and  amount  of  Wharton's  debts,  and  so  on.  Thanks  to  his  father's 
hints  he  was  able  in  the  end  to  discover  quite  enough  to  furnish 
forth  a  supplementary  statement.  So  that,  when  the  10th  arrived, 
the  day  rose  upon  a  group  of  men  breathlessly  awaiting  a  play 
within  a  play  —  with  all  their  parts  rehearsed,  and  the  prompter 
ready. 

Such,  in  substance,  was  Anthony's  story.  So  carried  away  was 
he  by  the  excitement  and  ti'iumph  of  it,  that  he  soon  ceased  to 
notice  what  its  effect  might  be  upon  his  pale  and  quick-breathing 
companion. 

"And  now  what  has  happened?  "  she  asked  him  abruptly,  when 
at  last  he  paused. 

"  Why,  you  saw !  "  he  said  in  astonishment,  pointing  to  the 
evening  paper  —  "  at  least  the  beginning  of  it.  Louis  is  at  the 
House  now.  I  expect  him  every  moment.  He  said  he  would 
follow  me  here." 

Marcella  pressed  her  hands  upon  her  eyes  a  moment  as  though 
in  pain.     Anthony  looked  at  her  with  a  tardy  prick  of  remorse. 

"  I  hear  Louis's  knock  !  "  he  said,  springing  up.  "  May  I  let  him 
in?"  And,  without  waiting  for  reply,  he  hobbled  as  fast  as  his 
crutch  would  carry  him  to  the  outer  door.  Louis  came  in.  Mar- 
cella rose  mechanically.  He  paused  on  the  threshold,  his  short 
sight  trying  to  make  her  out  in  the  dusk.  Then  his  face  softened 
and  quivered.     He  walked  forward  quickly. 

"  I  know  you  have  something  to  forgive  us,"  he  said,  "and  that 
this  will  distress  you.  But  we  could  not  give  you  warning.  Every- 
thing was  so  rapid,  and  the  public  interests  involved  so  crushing." 


CHAP.  XV  MARCELLA  469 

He  was  flushed  with  vengeance  and  victory,  but  as  he  api:)roached 
her  his  look  was  deprecating  —  almost  timid.  Only  the  niglit  be- 
fore, Anthony  for  the  first  time  had  suggested  to  him  an  idea 
about  her.  He  did  not  believe  it  —  had  had  no  time  in  truth  to 
think  of  it  in  the  rush  of  events.  But  now  he  saw  her,  the  doubt 
pulled  at  his  heart.  Had  he  indeed  stabbed  the  hand  that  had 
tried  to  help  him  ? 

Anthony  touched  him  impatiently  on  the  arm.  "  What  has 
happened,  Louis  ?     I  have  shown  Aliss  Boyce  the  first  news." 

"  It  is  all  over,"  said  Louis,  briefly.  "  The  meeting  was  break- 
ing up  as  I  came  away.  It  had  lasted  nearly  five  hours.  There 
was  a  fierce  fight,  of  course,  between  Wharton  and  Wilkins.  Then 
Bennett  withdrew  his  resolution,  refused  to  be  nominated  himself 

—  nearly  broke  down,  in  fact,  they  say ;  he  had  always  been  at- 
tached to  Wharton,  and  had  set  his  heart  upon  making  him  leader 

—  and  finally,  after  a  long  wrangle,  MoUoy  was  appointed  chairman 
of  the  party." 

"  Good  !  "  cried  Anthony,  not  able  to  suppress  the  note  of  exul- 
tation. 

Louis  did  not  speak.     He  looked  at  Marcella. 

"Did  he  defend  himself?  "  she  asked  in  a  low,  sharp  voice. 

Louis  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"Oh,  yes.  He  spoke — but  it  did  him  no  good.  Everybody 
agreed  that  the  speech  was  curiously  ineffective.  One  would  have 
expected  him  to  do  it  better.  But  he  seemed  to  be  knocked  over. 
He  said,  of  course,  that  he  had  satisfied  himself,  and  given  proof 
in  the  paper,  that  the  strike  could  not  be  maintained,  and  that 
being  so  he  was  free  to  join  any  syndicate  he  pleased.  But  he 
spoke  amid  dead  silence,  and  there  was  a  general  groan  when  he 
sat  down.  Oh,  it  was  not  this  business  only !  Wilkins  made 
great  play  in  part  of  his  speech  with  the  Company  scandal  too. 
It  is  a  complete  smash  all  round." 

"  Which  he  will  never  get  over  ?  "  said  Marcella,  quickly. 

"  Not  with  our  men.  What  he  may  do  elsewhere  is  another 
matter.     Anthony  has  told  you  how  it  came  out  ?  " 

She  made  a  sign  of  assent.  She  was  sitting  erect  and  cold,  her 
hands  round  her  knees. 

"  I  did  not  mean  to  keep  anything  from  you,"  he  said  in  a  low 
voice,  bending  to  her.  "  I  know  —  you  admired  him  —  that  he  had 
given  you  cause.  But  —  my  mind  has  been  on  fire  —  ever  since  I 
came  back  from  those  Damesley  scenes  !  " 

She  offered  no  reply.  Silence  fell  upon  all  three  for  a  minute 
or  two ;  and  in  the  twilight  each  could  hardly  distinguish  the 
others.  Every  now  and  then  the  passionate  tears  rose  in  Marcella's 
eyes;  her  heart  contracted.     That  very  night  when  he  spoke  to 


470      /  MARCELLA  book  ni 

her,  when  he  used  all  those  big  words  to  her  about  his  future, 
those  great  euds  for  which  he  had  claimed  her  woman's  help  —  he 
had  these  things  in  his  mind. 

■ "  I  think,"  said  Louis  Craven  presently,  touching  her  gently  on 
the  arm  —  he  had  tried  once  in  vain  to  attract  her  attention  —  "I 
think  I  hear  some  one  asking  for  you  outside  on  the  landing  — 
Mrs.  Hurd  seems  to  be  bringing  them  in." 

As  he  spoke,  Anthony  suddenly  sprang  to  his  feet,  and  the  outer 
door  opened. 

"  Louis !  "  cried  Anthony,  "  it  is  he !  " 

"  Are  yer  at  home,  miss  ?  "  said  Minta  Hurd,  putting  in  her  head ; 
"  I  can  hardly  see,  it's  so  dark.  Here's  a  gentleman  wants  to  see 
you." 

As  she  spoke,  Wharton  passed  her,  and  stood  —  arrested  —  by 
the  sight  of  the  three  figures.  At  the  same  moment  Mrs.  Hurd 
lit  the  gas  in  the  little  passage.  The  light  streamed  upon  his  face, 
and  showed  him  the  identity  of  the  two  men  standing  beside 
Marcella. 

Never  did  Marcella  forget  that  apparition  —  the  young  gi'ace  and 
power  of  the  figure  —  the  indefinable  note  of  wreck,  of  catastrophe 
—  the  Lucifer  brightness  of  the  eyes  in  the  set  face.  She  moved 
forward.     Anthony  stopped  her. 

"  Good-night,  Miss  Boyce  !  " 

She  shook  hands  unconsciously  with  him  and  with  Louis.  The 
two  Cravens  turned  to  the  door.  Wharton  advanced  into  the 
room,  and  let  them  pass. 

"  You  have  been  in  a  hurry  to  tell  your  story  !  "  he  said,  as  Louis 
walked  by  him. 

Contemptuous  hate  breathed  from  every  feature,  but  he  was  per- 
fectly self-controlled. 

"Yes  —  "  said  Craven,  calmly  —  "  Now  it  is  your  turn." 

The  door  was  no  sooner  shut  than  Wharton  strode  forward  and 
caught  her  hand. 

"  They  have  told  you  everything?     Ah !  —  " 

His  eye  fell  upon  the  evening  paper.  Letting  her  go,  he  felt  for  a 
chair  and  dropped  into  it.  Throwing  himself  back,  his  hands 
behind  his  head,  he  drew  a  long  breath  and  his  eyes  closed.  For 
the  first  time  in  his  life  or  hers  she  saw  him  weak  and  spent  like 
other  men.  Even  his  nerve  had  been  worn  down  by  the  excite- 
ment of  these  five  fighting  hours.  The  eyes  were  lined  and 
hollow — the  brow  contracted;  the  young  roundness  of  the  cheek 
was  lost  in  the  general  pallor  and  patchiness  of  the  skin ;  the  lower 
part  of  the  face  seemed  to  have  sharpened  and  lengthened,  —  and 
over  the  whole  had  passed  a  breath  of  something  aging  and  wither- 
ing the  traces  of  which  sent  a  shiver  through  Marcella.     She  sat 


CHAP.  XV  MARCELLA  471 

down  near  him,  still  in  her  nurse's  cloak,  one  trembling  hand  upon 
her  lap. 

"Will  you  tell  me  what  made  you  do  this?  "  she  asked,  not  being 
able  to  think  of  anything  else  to  say. 

He  opened  his  eyes  with  a  start. 

In  that  instant's  quiet  the  scene  he  had  just  lived  through  had 
been  rushing  before  him  again  —  the  loug  table  in  the  panelled 
committee-room,  the  keen  angry  faces  gathered  about  it.  Bennett, 
in  his  blue  tie  and  shabby  black  coat,  the  clear  moist  eyes  vexed 
and  miserable  —  INIolIoy,  small  and  wiry,  business-like  in  the 
midst  of  confusion,  cool  in  the  midst  of  tiimult  —  and  Wilkins, 
a  black,  hectoring  leviathan,  thundering  on  the  table  as  he  flung 
his  broad  Yorkshire  across  it,  or  mouthing  out  Denny's  letter  in 
the  midst  of  the  sudden  electrical  silence  of  some  thirty  amazed 
and  incredulous  hearers. 

"  Spies,  yo  call  us  ?  "  with  a  finger  like  a  dart,  threatening  the 
enemy  —  "  Aye  ;  an'  yo're  aboot  reet !  I  and  my  friends  —  we 
have  been  ti'ackin'  and  spyin'  for  weeks  past.  We  kneiv  those 
men,  those  starvin'  women  and  bairns,  were  bein'  sold,  but  we 
couldn't  prove  it.  Now  we've  come  at  the  how  and  the  why  of  it! 
And  we'll  make  it  harder  for  men  like  you  to  sell  'em  again  !  Yo 
call  it  infamy?  —  well,  we  call  it  detection." 

Then  rattling  on  the  inner  ear  came  the  phrases  of  the  attack 
which  followed  on  the  director  of  "  The  People's  Banking  Associa- 
tion," the  injured  innocent  of  as  mean  a  job,  as  unsavoury  a  bit  of 
vulturous  finance,  as  had  croj^ped  into  publicity  for  many  a  j'ear  — 
and  finally  the  last  dramatic  cry  : 

"But  it's  noa  matter,  yo  say!  Mester  Wharton  has  nobbut 
played  his  party  and  the  workin'  man  a  dirty  trick  or  two  —  ari"  yo 
mini  have  a  gentleman !  Noa  —  the  workin'  man  isn't  fit  himself  to 
speak  wi'  his  own  enemies  i'  th'  gate  —  yo  mun  have  a  gentleman !  — 
an'  Mester  Wharton,  he  says  he'll  tak'  the  post,  an'  dea  his  best 
for  yo  —  an',  remember,  yo  mun  have  a  gentleman !  Soa  now  —  Yes  ! 
or  No !  —  wuU  yo ?  —  or  ivoan't  yoV 

And  at  that,  the  precipitation  of  the  great  unwieldy  form  half 
across  the  table  towards  Wharton's  seat  —  the  roar  of  the  speaker's 
immediate  supporters  thrown  up  against  the  dead  silence  of  the  rest  I 

As  to  his  own  speech  —  he  thought  of  it  with  a.  soreness,  a  dis- 
gust which  penetrated  to  bones  and  marrow.  He  had  been  too 
desperately  taken  by  surprise  —  had  lost  his  nerve  —  missed  the 
right  tone  throughout.  Cool  defiance,  free  self-justification,  might 
have  carried  him  through.     Instead  of  which  —  faugh  ! 

All  this  was  the  phantom-show  of  a  few  seconds'  thought.  He 
roused  himself  from  a  miserable  reaction  of  mind  and  body  to 
attend  to  Marcella's  question. 


472  MARCELLA  book  hi 

"  Why  did  I  do  it  ?  "  he  repeated ;  "  why  —  " 

He  broke  off,  pressing  both  his  hands  upon  his  brow.  Then  he 
suddenly  sat  up  and  pulled  himself  together. 

"  Is  that  tea  ?  "  he  said,  touching  the  tray.  "  Will  you  give  me 
some  ?  " 

Marcella  went  into  the  back  kitchen  and  called  Minta.  While 
the  boiling  water  was  brought  and  the  tea  was  made,  Wharton  sat 
forward  with  his  face  on  his  hands  and  saw  nothing.  Marcella 
whispered  a  word  in  Minta's  ear  as  she  came  in.  The  woman 
paused,  looked  at  Wharton,  whom  she  had  not  recognised  before 
in  the  dark  —  grew  pale  —  and  Marcella  saw  her  hands  shakmg  as 
she  set  the  tray  in  order.  Wharton  knew  nothing  and  thought 
nothing  of  Kurd's  widow,  but  to  Marcella  the  juxtaposition  of  the 
two  figures  brought  a  wave  of  complex  emotion. 

Wharton  forced  himself  to  eat  and  drink,  hardly  speaking  the 
while.  Then,  when  the  tremor  of  sheer  exhaustion  had  to  some 
extent  abated,  he  suddenly  realised  who  this  was  that  was  sitting 
opposite  to  him  ministering  to  him. 

She  felt  his  hand  —  his  quick  powerful  hand  — ■  on  hers. 

"  To  you  I  owe  the  whole  truth  —  let  me  tell  it !  " 

She  drew  herself  away  instinctively  —  but  so  softly  that  he  did  not 
realise  it.  He  threw  himself  back  once  more  in  the  chair  beside 
her  —  one  knee  over  the  other,  the  curly  head  so  much  younger 
to-night  than  the  face  beneath  it  supported  on  his  arms,  his  eyes 
closed  again  for  vest — and  plunged  into  the  story  of  the  Clarion. 

It  was  admirably  told.  He  had  probably  so  rehearsed  it  to 
himself  several  times  already.  He  described  his  action  as  the 
result  of  a  double  influence  working  upon  him — the  influence 
of  his  own  debts  and  necessities,  and  the  influence  of  his  grow- 
ing conviction  that  the  maintenance  of  the  strike  had  become 
a  blunder,  even  a  misfortune  for  the  people  themselves. 

"Then  —  just  as  I  was  at  my  wit's  end,  conscious  besides  that 
the  paper  was  on  a  wrong  line,  and  must  somehow  be  got  out  of 
it  —  came  the  overtures  from  the  Syndicate.  I  knew  perfectly 
well  I  ought  to  have  refused  them  —  of  course  my  whole  career 
was  risked  by  listening  to  them.  But  at  the  same  time  they  gave 
me  assurances  that  the  work-people  would  ultimately  gain  —  they 
proved  to  me  ^hat  I  was  helping  to  extinguish  the  trade.  As  to 
the  money  —  when  a  great  company  has  to  be  launched,  the  people 
who  help  it  into  being  get  jmid  for  it  —  it  is  invariable  —  it  hap- 
pens every  day.  I  like  the  system  no  more  than  you  may  do  —  or 
Wilkins.  But  consider.  I  was  in  such  straits  that  hankrujitcy 
lay  between  me  and  my  political  future.  Moreover  —  I  had  lost 
nerve,  sleep,  balance.  I  was  scarcely  master  of  myseH  when  Pear- 
son first  broached  the  matter  to  me  —  " 


CHAP.  XV  MARCELLA  473 

"  Pearson  ! "  cried  ISIarcella,  involuntarily.  She  recalled  the  figure 
of  the  solicitor ;  had  heard  his  name  from  Frank  Leven.  She 
remembered  Wharton's  impatient  words  —  "There  is  a  tiresome 
man  wants  to  speak  to  me  on  business  —  " 

It  was  then  !  —  that  evening  !     Something  sickened  her. 

Whai-ton  raised  himself  in  his  chair  and  looked  at  her  atten- 
tively with  his  young  haggard  eyes.  In  the  faint  lamplight  she 
was  a  pale  vision  of  the  pm'est  and  noblest  beauty.  But  the  lofty 
sadness  of  her  face  filled  him  with  a  kind  of  terror.  Desire  — 
impotent  pain  —  violent  resolve,  swept  across  him.  He  had  come 
to  her,  straight  from  the  scene  of  his  ruin,  as  to  the  last  bulwark 
left  him  against  a  world  bent  on  his  destruction,  and  bare  hence- 
forward of  all  delights. 

"  Well,  what  have  you  to  say  to  me  ? "  he  said,  suddenly,  in  a 
low  changed  voice  —  "as  I  speak  —  as  I  look  at  you  —  1  see  in  your 
face  that  you  distrust  —  that  you  have  judged  me  ;  those  two  men, 
I  suppose,  have  done  their  work  !  Yet  from  you  —  yon  of  all  peo- 
ple —  I  might  look  not  only  for  justice  —  but  —  I  will  dare  say  it 
—  for  kindness  !  " 

She  trembled.  She  understood  that  he  appealed  to  the  days  at 
Mellor,  and  her  lips  quivered. 

"  No,"  she  exclaimed,  almost  timidly  —  "I  try  to  think  the  best. 
I  see  the  pressure  was  great." 

"And  consider,  please," he  said  proudly,  "what  the  reasons  were 
for  that  pressure." 

She  looked  at  him  interrogatively  —  a  sudden  softness  in  her 
eyes.  If  at  that  moment  he  had  confessed  himself  fully,  if  he 
had  thrown  himself  upon  her  in  the  frank  truth  of  his  mixed 
character — and  he  could  have  done  it,  with  a  Rousseau-like  com- 
pleteness—  it  is  difficult  to  say  what  the  result  of  this  scene  might 
have  been.  In  the  midst  of  shock  and  repulsion,  she  was  filled 
.  with  pity ;  and  there  were  moments  when  she  was  moi"e  drawn  to 
his  defeat  and  undoing,  than  she  had  ever  been  to  his  success. 

Yet  how  question  him  ?  To  do  so,  would  be  to  assume  a  right, 
which  in  turn  would  imj^ly  his  rights.  She  thought  of  that  men- 
tion of  "  gambling  debts,"  then  of  his  luxurious  habits,  and 
extravagant  friends.  But  she  was  silent.  Only,  as  she  sat  there 
opposite  to  him,  one  slim  hand  propping  the  brow,  her  look 
invited  him. 

He  thought  he  saw  his  advantage. 

"You  must  remember,"  he  said,  with  the  same  self-assertive 
bearing,  "  that  I  have  never  been  a  rich  man,  that  my  mother 
spent  my  father's  savings  on  a  score  of  public  objects,  that  she 
and  I  started  a  number  of  experiments  on  the  estate,  that  my 
expenses  as  a  member  of  Parliament  are  very  large,  and  that  I 


474  MARC  ELLA  book  in 

spent  thousands  on  building  up  the  Clarion.  I  have  been  ruined 
by  the  Clarion,  by  the  cause  the  Clarion  supported.  I  got  no  help 
from  my  party  —  where  was  it  to  come  from  ?  They  are  all  poor 
men.  I  had  to  do  everything  myself,  and  the  struggle  has  been 
more  than  flesh  and  blood  could  bear !  This  year,  often,  I  have 
not  known  how  to  move,  to  breathe,  for  anxieties  of  every  sort. 
Then  came  the  crisis  —  my  work,  my  usefulness,  my  career,  all 
threatened.  The  men  who  hated  me  saw  their  opportunity.  I 
was  a  fool  and  gave  it  them.  And  my  enemies  have  used  it  — 
to  the  bitter  end !  " 

Tone  and  gesture  were  equally  insistent  and  strong.  What  he 
was  saying  to  himself  was  that,  with  a  woman  of  Marcella's  type, 
one  must  "bear  it  out."  This  moment  of  wreck  was  also  with 
him  the  first  moment  of  all-absorbing  and  desperate  desire.  To 
win  her  —  to  wrest  her  from  the  Cravens'  influence  —  that  had 
been  the  cry  in  his  mind  throughout  his  dazed  drive  from  the 
House  of  Commons.  Her  hand  in  his  —  her  strength,  her  beauty, 
the  romantic  reputation  that  had  begun  to  attach  to  her,  at  his 
command  —  and  he  would  have  taken  the  first  step  to  recovery,  he 
would  see  his  way  to  right  himself. 

Ah  !  but  he  had  missed  his  chance  !  Somehow,  every  word  he 
had  been  saying  rang  false  to  her.  She  could  have  thrown  herself 
as  a  saving  angel  on  the  side  of  weakness  and  disaster  which  had 
spoken  its  proper  language,  and  with  a  reckless  and  confiding 
truth  had  appealed  to  the  largeness  of  a  woman's  heart.  But  this 
patriot  —  ruined  so  nobly  —  for  such  disinterested  purposes  —  left 
her  cold !  She  began  to  think  even  —  hating  herself  —  of  the 
thousands  he  was  supposed  to  have  made  in  the  gambling  over 
that  wretched  company —  no  doubt  for  the  "  cause  "  too! 

But  before  she  could  say  a  word  he  was  kneeling  beside  her. 

"  Marcella!  give  me  my  answer  !  —  1  am  in  trouble  and  defeat 
—  be  a  woman,  and  come  to  me  !  " 

He  had  her  hands.     She  tried  to  recover  them. 

"  No  !  "  she  said,  with  passionate  energy,  "  that  is  impossible.  I 
had  written  to  you  before  you  came,  before  I  had  heard  a  word  of 
this.     Please,  please  let  me  go !  " 

"Not  till  you  explain  !  "  —  he  said,  still  holding  her,  and  roused 
to  a  white  heat  of  emotion  —  '■' tchy  is  it  impossible?  You  said  to 
me  once,  with  all  your  heart,  that  you  thanked  me,  that  I  had 
taught  you,  helped  you.  You  cannot  ignore  the  bond  between  us ! 
And  you  are  free.  I  have  a  right  to  say  to  you  —  you  thirst  to 
save,  to  do  good  —  come  and  save  a  man  that  cries  to  you!  —  he 
confesses  to  you,  freely  enough,  that  he  has  made  a  hideous  mis- 
take —  help  him  to  redeem  it !  " 

She  rose  suddenly  with  all  her  strength,  freeing  herself  from 
him,  so  that  he  rose  too,  and  stood  glowering  and  pale. 


CHAP.  XV  MARCELLA  475 

"  When  I  said  that  to  you,"  she  cried,  "I  was  betraying"  —  her 
voice  failed  her  an  instant  —  "we  were  both  false  —  to  the  obliga- 
tion that  should  have  held  us  —  restrained  us.  No!  no!  I  will 
never  be  your  wife!  AVe  should  hurt  each  other  —  poison  each 
other !  " 

Her  eyes  shone  with  wild  tears.  As  he  stood  there  before  her 
she  was  seized  with  a  piteous  sense  of  contrast  —  of  the  irrepara- 
ble —  of  what  might  have  been. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  asked  her,  roughly. 

She  was  silent. 

His  passion  rose. 

"  Do  you  reniSmber,"  he  said,  ajiproaching  her  again,  "  that  you 
have  given  me  cause  to  hope  ?  It  is  those  two  fanatics  that  have 
changed  you  —  possessed  your  mind." 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  pale  dignity. 

"  My  letters  must  have  warned  j'ou,"  she  said  simply.  "  If  you 
had  come  to-morrow  —  in  prosperity  —  you  would  have  got  the 
same  answer,  at  once.  To-day  —  now  —  I  have  had  weak  mo- 
ments, because  —  because  I  did  not  know  how  to  add  pain  to  pain. 
But  they  are  gone  —  I  see  my  way  !  I  do  not  love  you  —  that  is  the 
simple,  the  whole  truth  —  I  could  not  follow  you !  " 

He  stared  at  her  an  instant  in  a  bitter  silence. 

"I  have  been  warned,"  —  he  said  slowly,  but  in  truth  losing 
control  of  himself,  "not  only  by  you — and  I  suppose  I  under- 
stand! You  repent  last  year.  Your  own  letter  said  as  much. 
You  mean  to  recover  the  ground  —  the  place  you  lost.  Ah,  well! 
—  most  natural! — most  fitting!  When  the  time  comes  —  and 
ray  bones  are  less  sore  —  I  suppose  I  shall  have  my  second  con- 
gratulations ready  !     Meanwhile  —  " 

She  gave  a  low  cry  and  burst  suddenly  into  a  passion  of  weep- 
ing, turning  her  face  from  him.  But  when  in  pale  sudden  shame 
he  tried  to  excuse  himself  —  to  appease  her  —  she  moved  away, 
with  a  gesture  that  overawed  him. 

'^You  have  not  confessed  yourself"  —  she  said,  and  his  look 
wavered  under  the  significance  of  hers  —  "  but  you  drive  me  to  it. 
Yes,  /  repent!"  —  her  breast  heaved,  she  caught  her  breath.  "I 
have  been  trying  to  cheat  myself  these  last  few  weeks  —  to  run 
away  from  grief  —  and  the  other  night  when  you  asked  me  —  1 
would  have  given  all  I  have  and  am  to  feel  like  any  happy  girl, 
who  says  '  Yes '  to  her  lover.  I  tried  to  feel  so.  But  even  then, 
though  I  was  miserable  and  reckless,  I  knew  in  my  heart  —  it  was 
impossible!  If  you  suppose — if  you  like  to  suppose  —  that  I  — 
I  have  hopes  or  plans  —  as  mean  as  they  would  be  silly  —  you 
must  —  of  course.  But  I  have  given  no  one  any  7nght  to  think  so 
or  say  so.     Mr.  AVharton  —  " 


476  MARCELLA  book  hi 

Gathering  all  her  self-oontrol,  she  put  out  her  white  hand  to 
him.  "Please  —  please  say  good-bye  to  me.  It  has  been  hideous 
vanity  —  and  mistake  —  and  wretchedness  —  our  knowing  each 
other  —  from  the  beginning.  I  am  grateful  for  all  you  did,  I  shall 
always  be  grateful.  I  hope  —  oh!  I  hope  —  that  —  that  you  will 
find  a  way  through  this  trouble.  I  don't  want  to  make  it  worse 
by  a  word.  If  I  could  do  anything!  But  I  can't.  You  must 
please  go.     It  is  late.     I  wish  to  call  my  friend,  Mrs.  Hurd." 

Their  eyes  met  —  hers  full  of  a  certain  stern  yet  quivering 
power,  his  strained  and  bloodshot,  in  his  lined  young  face. 

Then,  with  a  violent  gesture  —  as  though  he  swept  her  out  of 
his  path  —  he  caught  up  his  hat,  went  to  the  door,*and  was  gone. 

She  fell  on  her  chair  almost  fainting,  and  sat  there  for  long  in 
the  summer  dark,  covering  her  face.  But  it  was  not  his  voice 
that  haunted  her  ears. 

'■'■You  have  done  me  wrong —  I  pray  God  you  may  not  do  yourself  a 
greater  wrong  in  the  future.'  " 

Again  and  again,  amid  the  whirl  of  memory,  she  pressed  the 
sad  remembered  words  upon  the  inward  wound  and  fever  —  tast- 
ing, cherishing  the  smart  of  them.  And  as  her  trance  of  exhaus- 
tion and  despair  gradually  left  her,  it  was  as  though  she  crept 
close  to  some  dim  beloved  form  in  whom  her  heart  knew  hencefor- 
ward the  secret  and  sole  companion  of  its  inmost  life. 


BOOK   IV 

"You  and  I  — 
Why  care  by  what  meanders  we  are  here 
r  the  centre  of  the  labyrinth  ?     Men  have  died 
Trying  to  find  this  place  which  we  have  found." 


CHAPTER  I 

Ah!  how  purely,  cleanly  beautiful  was  the  autumn  sunrise! 
After  her  long  hardening  to  the  stale  noisomeness  of  London 
streets,  the  taint  of  London  air,  Marcella  hung  out  of  her  window 
at  Mellor  in  a  thirsty  delight,  drinking  in  the  scent  of  dew  and 
earth  and  trees,  watching  the  ways  of  the  birds,  pouring  forth  a  soul 
of  yearning  and  of  memory  into  the  pearly  silence  of  the  morning. 

High  up  on  the  distant  hill  to  the  left,  beyond  the  avenue,  the 
pale  apricots  and  golds  of  the  newly-shorn  stubbles  caught  the 
iBounting  light.  The  beeches  of  the  avenue  were  turning  fast,  and 
the  cTiestnuts  girdling  the  church  on  her  right  hand  were  already 
thin  enough  to  let  the  tower  show  through.  That  was  the  bell  — 
the  old  bell  given  to  the  church  by  Hampden's  friend,  John  Boyce 
—  striking  half-past  five ;  and  close  upon  it  came  the  call  of  a 
pheasant  in  the  avenue.  There  he  was,  fine  fellow,  with  his  silly, 
mincing  run,  redeemed  all  at  once  by  the  sudden  whirr  of  towering 
flight. 

To-day  Mary  Harden  and  the  Rector  would  be  at  work  in  the 
church,  and  to-morrow  was  to  be  the  Harvest  Festival.  Was  it 
two  years? — or  in  an  hour  or  two  would  she  be  going  with  her 
basket  from  the  Cedar  Garden,  to  find  that  figure  in  the  brown 
shooting-coat  standing  with  the  Hardens  on  the  altar  steps? 

Alas  !  —  alas  !  —  her  head  dropped  on  her  hands  as  she  knelt  by 
the  open  window.  How  changed  were  all  the  aspects  of  the  world  I 
Three  weeks  before,  the  bell  in  that  little  church  had  tolled  for 
one  who,  in  the  best  way  and  temper  of  his  own  generation,  had 
been  God's  servant  and  man's  friend  —  who  had  been  Mai"cella's 
friend  —  and  had  even,  in  his  last  days,  on  a  word  from  Edward 
Hallin,  sent  her  an  old  man's  kindly  fare^vell. 

"  Tell  her,"  Lord  INIaxwell  had  written  with  his  own  hand  to 
Hallin,  "  she  has  taken  up  a  noble  work,  and  will  make,  I  pray  God, 
a  noble  woman.  She  had,  I  think,  a  kindW  liking  for  an  old  man, 
and  she  will  not  disdain  his  blessing." 

He  had  died  at  Geneva,  Aldous  and  Miss  Raeburn  with  him. 
For  instead  of  coming  home  in  August,  he  had  grown  suddenly 

479 


480  MAROELLA  book  iv 

worse,  and  Aldous  had  gone  out  to  him.  They  had  brought  him 
to  the  Court  for  burial,  and  the  new  Lord  Maxwell,  leaving  his 
aunt  at  the  Court,  had  almost  immediately  returned  to  town,  — 
because  of  Edward  Halliu's  state  of  health. 

Marcella  had  seen  much  of  Hallin  since  he  and  his  sister  had 
come  back  to  London  in  the  middle  of  August.  Halliu's  apparent 
improvement  had  faded  within  a  week  or  two  of  his  return  to  his 
rooms ;  Aldous  was  at  Geneva ;  Miss  Hallin  was  in  a  panic  of  alarm ; 
and  Marcella  found  herself  both  nurse  and  friend.  Day  after  day 
she  would  go  in  after  her  nursing  rounds,  share  their  evening  meal, 
and  either  write  for  Hallin,  or  help  the  sister  —  by  the  slight  extra 
weight  of  her  professional  voice  —  to  keep  him  from  writing  and 
thinking. 

He  would  not  himself  admit  that  he  was  ill  at  all,  and  his  whole 
energies  at  the  time  were  devoted  to  the  preparation  of  a  series  of 
three  addresses  on  the  subject  of  Land  Reform,  which  were  to  be 
delivered  in  October  to  the  delegates  of  a  large  number  of  work- 
ing-men's clubs  from  all  parts  of  London.  So  strong  was  Hal- 
liu's position  among  working-men  reformers,  and  so  beloved  had 
been  his  personality,  that  as  soon  as  his  position  towards  the  new 
land  nationalising  movement,  now  gathering  formidable  strength 
among  the  London  working  men,  had  come  to  be  widely  under- 
stood, a  combined  challenge  had  been  sent  him  by  some  half- 
dozen  of  the  leading  Socialist  and  Radical  clubs,  asking  him  to 
give  thr-ee  weekly  addresses  in  October  to  a  congress  of  London 
delegates,  time  to  be  allowed  after  the  lecture  for  questions  and 
debate. 

Hallin  had  accepted  the  invitation  with  eagerness,  and  was 
throwing  an  intensity  of  labour  into  the  writing  of  his  three  lect- 
ures which  often  seemed  to  his  poor  sister  to  be  not  only  utterly 
beyond  his  physical  strength,  but  to  carry  with  it  a  note  as  of  a 
last  effort,  a  farewell  message,  such  as  her  devoted  affection  could 
ill  endure.  For  all  the  time  he  was  struggling  with  cardiac  weak- 
ness and  brain  irritability  which  would  have  overwhelmed  any  one 
less  accustomed  to  make  his  account  with  illness,  or  to  balance 
against  feebleness  of  body  a  marvellous  discipline  of  soul. 

Lord  Maxwell  was  still  alive,  and  Hallin,  in  the  midst  of  his 
work,  was  looking  anxiously  for  the  daily  reports  from  Aldous, 
living  in  his  friend's  life  "almost  as  much  as  in  his  own  —  handing 
on  the  reports,  too,  day  by  day  to  Marcella,  with  a  manner  which 
had  somehow  slipped  into  expressing  a  new  and  sure  confidence 
in  her  sympathy  —  when  she  one  evening  found  Minta  Hurd 
watching  for  her  at  the  door  W'ith  a  telegram  from  her  mother : 
"  Your  father  suddenly  worse.  Please  come  at  once."  She 
arrived  at  Mellor  late  that  same  niijht. 


CHAP.  1  MARCELLA  481 

On  the  same  day  Lord  Maxwell  died.  Less  than  a  week  later 
he  was  buried  iii  the  little  (Jairsley  church.  Mr.  Boyce  was  then 
alarmingly  ill,  and  Marcella  sat  in  his  darkened  room  or  in  her  own 
all  day,  thinking  from  time  to  time  of  what  was  passing  three 
miles  away  —  of  the  great  house  in  its  mourning  —  of  the  figui'es 
round  the  grave.  Hallin,  of  course,  would  be  there.  It  was  a 
dripping  September  day,  and  she  passed  easily  from  moments  of 
passionate  yearning  and  clairvoyance  to  worry  herself  about  the 
damp  and  the  fatigue  that  Hallin  must  be  facing. 

Since  then  she  had  heard  occasionally  from  Miss  Hallin.  Every- 
thing was  much  as  it  had  been,  apparently.  Edward  was  still 
hard  at  work,  still  ill,  still  serene.  "  Aldous"  — Miss  Hallin  could 
not  yet  reconcile  herself  to  the  new  name — was  alone  in  the  Curzon 
Street  house,  much  occupied  and  harassed  apparently  by  the  legal 
business  of  the  succession,  by  the  election  presently  to  be  held  in 
his  own  constituency,  and  by  the  winding-up  of  his  work  at  the 
Home  Office.  He  was  to  resign  his  under-secretaryship  ;  but  with 
the  new  session  and  a  certain  rearrangement  of  offices  it  was  prob- 
able that  he  would  be  brought  back  into  the  jNIinistry.  Meanwhile 
he  was  constantly  with  them  ;  and  she  thought  that  his  interest  in 
Edward's  work  and  anxiety  about  his  health  were  perhaps  both 
good  for  him  as  helping  to  throw  off  something  of  his  own  grief 
and  depression. 

Whereby  it  will  be  noticed  that  Miss  Hallin,  like  her  brother, 
had  by  now  come  to  speak  intimately  and  freely  to  Marcella  of 
her  old  lover  and  their  friend. 

Now  for  some  days,  however,  she  had  received  no  letter  from 
either  brother  or  sister,  and  she  was  particularly  anxious  to  hear. 
For  this  was  the  fourth  of  October,  and  on  the  second  he  was 
to  have  delivered  the  first  of  his  addresses.  How  had  the  fi'ail 
prophet  sped  ?  She  had  her  fears.  For  her  weekly  "  evenings  " 
in  Brown's  Buildings  had  shown  her  a  good  deal  of  the  passionate 
strength  of  feeling  developed  during  the  past  year  in  connection 
with  this  particular  proiaaganda.  She  doubted  whether  the  Lon- 
don working  man  at  the  present  moment  was  likely  to  give  even 
Hallin  a  fair  hearing  on  the  point.  However,  Louis  Craven  was 
to  be  there.  And  he  had  promised  to  write  even  if  Susie  Hallin 
could  find  no  time.  Some  report  ought  to  reach  Mellor  by  the 
evening. 

Poor  Cravens  !  The  young  wife,  who  was  expecting  a  baby,  had 
behaved  with  great  spirit  through  the  Clarion  trouble;  and,  selling 
their  bits  of  furniture  to  pay  their  debts,  they  had  gone  to  lodge 
near  Anthony.  Louis  had  got  some  odds  and  ends  of  designing 
and  artistic  work  to  do  through  his  brother's  influence ;  and  was 
writing  where  he  could,  here  and  there.  Marcella  had  introduced 
2i 


482  MARCELLA  book  iv 

them  to  the  Hallins,  and  Susie  Hallin  was  taking  a  motherly  inter- 
est in  the  coining  child.  Anthony,  in  his  gloomy  way,  was  doing 
all  he  could  for  them.  But  the  struggle  was  likely  to  be  a  hard 
one,  and  Marcella  had  recognised  of  late  that  in  Louis  as  in 
Anthony  there  were  dangerous  possibilities  of  melancholy  and 
eccentricity.  Her  heart  was  often  sore  over  their  trouble  and  her 
own  impotence. 

Meantime  for  some  wounds,  at  any  rate,  time  had  brought  swift 
cautery!  Not  three  days  after  her  final  interview  Avith  Wharton, 
while  the  catastrophe  in  the  Labour  party  was  still  in  every  one's 
mouth,  and  the  air  was  full  of  bitter  speeches  and  recriminations, 
Hallin  one  evening  laid  down  his  newspaper  with  a  sudden  startled 
gesture,  and  then  pushed  it  over  to  Marcella.  There,  in  the  col- 
umns devoted  to  personal  news  of  various  sorts,  appeared  the 
announcement : 

"A  marriage  has  been  arranged  between  Mr.  H.  S;  Wharton, 
M.P.  for  West  Brookshire,  and  Lady  Selina  Farrell,  only  surviving 
daughter  of  Lord  Alresford.  The  ceremony  will  probably  take 
place  somewhere  about  Easter  next.  Meanwhile  Mr.  Wharton, 
whose  health  has  suffered  of  late  from  his  exertions  in  and  out  of 
the  House,  has  been  ordered  to  the  East  for  rest  by  his  medical 
advisers.  He  and  his  friend  Sir  William  FfoUiot  start  for  French 
Cochin  China  in  a  few  days.  Their  object  is  to  explore  the  famous 
ruined  temples  of  Angkor  in  Cambodia,  and  if  the  season  is  favour- 
able they  may  attempt  to  ascend  the  ISIekong.  ]\lr.  Wharton  is 
paired  for  the  remainder  of  the  session." 

"  Did  you  know  anything  of  this  ?  "  said  Hallin,  with  that  care- 
ful cai'elessness  in  which  people  dress  a  dubious  question. 

"Nothing,"  she  said  quietly. 

Then  an  impulse  not  to  be  stood  against,  springing  from  very 
mingled  depths  of  feeling,  drove  her  on.  She,  too,  put  down  the 
paper,  and  laying  her  finger-tips  together  on  Iier  knee  she  said  with 
an  odd  slight  laugh : 

"But  I  was  the  last  person  to  know.  About  a  fortnight  ago 
Mr.  Wliarton  proposed  to  me." 

Hallin  sprang  from  his  chair,  almost  with  a  shout.  "  And  you 
refused  him  ?  " 

She  nodded,  and  then  was  angrily  aware  that,  totally  against 
her  will  or  consent,  and  for  the  most  foolish  and  remote  reasons, 
those  two  eyes  of  hers  had  grown  moist. 

Hallin  went  straight  over  to  her. 

"  Do  you  mind  letting  me  shake  hands  with  you?  "  he  said,  half 
ashamed  of  his  outbui'st,  a  dancing  light  of  pleasure  transforming 
the  thin  face.  "There— lam  an  idiot!  We  won't  say  a  word 
more  —  except  about  Lady  Selina.     Have  you  seen  her  ?  " 


CHAP.  I  MARCELLA  488 

"  Three  or  four  times." 

"  What  is  slie  like  V  " 

INIarcella  hesitated. 

"Is  she  fat  —  and  forty?"  said  Ilallin,  fervently  —  "Will  she 
beat  him  ?" 

"  Not  at  all.  She  is  very  thin  —  thirty-five,  elegant,  terril)ly  of 
her  own  opinion  —  and  makes  a  great  parade  of  'papa.' " 

She  looked  round  at  him,  unsteadily,  but  gaily. 

"  Oh  !  1  see,"  said  Hallin,  with  disappointment,  "  she  will  only 
take  care  he  doesn't  beat  her  —  which  I  gather  from  your  njanner 
doesn't  matter.     And  her  politics?  "" 

"  Lord  Alresford  was  left  out  of  the  Mhiistry,"  said  Marcella, 
slyly.     "  He  and  Lady  Selina  thought  it  a  pity." 

"Alresford  —  Alresford?  Why,  of  course  !  He  was  Lord  Privy 
Seal  in  their  last  Cabinet  —  a  narrow-minded  old  stick!  —  did  a 
heap  of  mischief  in  the  Lords.  Well!"  —  Hallin  jjoudered  a 
moment  —  "Wharton  will  go  over!" 

Marcella  was  silent.  The  tremor  of  that  wrestler's  hour  had 
not  yet  passed  away.  The  girl  could  find  no  words  in  which 
to  discuss  AVharton  himself,  this  last  amazing  act,  or  its  future. 

As  for  Hallin,  he  sat  lost  in  pleasant  dreams  of  a  white- 
washed Wharton,  comfortably  settled  at  last  below  the  gangway 
on  the  Conservative  side,  using  all  the  old  catch-words  in  slightly 
different  connections,  and  living  gaily  on  his  Lady  Selina.  Frag- 
ments from  the  talk  of  Nehemiah  —  Nehemiah  the  happy  and 
truculent,  that  new  "  scourge  of  God "  upon  the  parasites  of 
Labour  —  of  poor  Bennett,  of  Molloy,  and  of  various  others  who 
had  found  time  to  drop  in  upon  him  since  the  Labour  smash, 
kept  whirling  in  his  mind.  The  same  prediction  he  had  just 
made  to  Marcella  was  to  be  discerned  in  several  of  them.  He 
vowed  to  himself  that  he  would  write  to  Raeburn  that  night, 
congratulate  him  and  the  party  on  the  possibility  of  so  eminent 
a  recruit  —  and  hint  another  item  of  news  by  the  way.  She  had 
trusted  her  confidence  to  him  without  any  pledge — an  act  for 
which  he  paid  her  well  thenceforward,  in  the  coin  of  a  friend- 
ship far  more  intimate,  expansive,  and  delightful  than  anything 
his  sincerity  had  as  yet  allowed  him  to  show  her. 

But  these  London  incidents  and  memories,  near  as  they  were  in 
time,  looked  many  of  them  strangely  remote  to  Marcella  in  this 
morning  silence.  When  she  drew  back  from  the  window,  after 
darkening  the  now  sun-flooded  room  in  a  very  thorough  business- 
like way,  in  order  that  she  might  have  four  or  five  hours'  sleep,  there 
was  something  symbolic  in  the  act.  She  gave  back  her  mind,  her 
self,  to  the  cares,  the  anxieties,  the  remorses  of  the  past  three 
weeks.     During  the  night  she  had  been  sitting  up  with  her  father 


484  MARCELLA  book  iv 

that  her  mother  might  rest.  Now,  as  she  lay  down,  she  thought 
with  the  sore  tension  which  had  lately  become  habitual  to  her,  of 
her  father's  state,  her  mother's  strange  personality,  her  own  short- 
comings. 

By  the  middle  of  the  morning  she  was  downstairs  again,  vigor- 
ous and  fresh  as  ever.  Mrs.  Boyce's  maid  was  for  the  moment  in 
charge  of  the  patient,  who  was  doing  well.  Mrs.  Boyce  was  writ- 
ing some  household  notes  in  the  drawing-room.  Marcella  went 
in  search  of  her. 

The  bare  room,  just  as  it"  ever  was  —  with  its  faded  antique 
charm  —  looked  bright  and  tempting  in  the  sun.  But  the  cheerful- 
ness of  it  did  but  sharpen  the  impression  of  that  thin  form  writing 
in  the  window.  Mrs.  Boyce  looked  years  older.  The  figure  had 
shrunk  and  flattened  into  that  of  an  old  woman  ;  the  hair,  which 
two  years  before  had  been  'still  young  and  abundant,  was  now 
easily  concealed  under  the  close  white  cap  she  had  adopted  very 
soon  after  her  daughter  had  left  Mellor.  The  dress  was  still  ex- 
quisitely neat ;  but  plainer  and  coarser.  Only  the  beautiful  hands 
and  the  delicate  stateliness  of  carriage  remained  —  sole  relics  of  a 
loveliness  which  had  cost  its  owner  few  pangs  to  part  with. 

Marcella  hovered  near  her  —  a  little  behind  her  —  looking  at 
her  from  time  to  time  with  a  yearning  compunction  —  which  Mrs. 
Boyce  seemed  to  be  aware  of,  and  to  avoid. 

"Mamma,  can't  I  do  those  letters  for  you?     I  am  quite  fresh." 

"No,  thank  you.     They  are  just  done." 

When  they  were  all  finished  and  stamped,  j\Irs.  Boyce  made 
some  careful  entries  in  a  very  methodical  account-book,  and  then 
got  up,  locking  the  drawers  of  her  little  writing-table  behind  her. 

"  We  can  keep  the  London  nurse  another  week  I  think,"  she 
said. 

"  There  is  no  need,"  said  Marcella,  quickly.  "  Emma  and  I 
could  divide  the  nights  now  and  spare  you  altogether.  You  see 
I  can  sleep  at  any  time." 

"  Your  father  seems  to  prefer  Nurse  Wenlock,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce. 

Marcella  took  the  little  blow  in  silence.  No  doubt  it  was  her 
due.  During  the  past  two  years  she  had  spent  two  separate  months 
at  Mellor ;  she  had  gone  away  in  opposition  to  her  father's  wish ; 
and  had  found  herself  on  her  return  more  of  a  stranger  to  her 
parents  than  ever.  Mr.  Boyce's  illness,  involving  a  steady  exten- 
sion of  paralytic  weakness,  with  occasional  acute  fits  of  pain  and 
danger,  had  made  steady  though  very  gradual  progress  all  the 
time.  But  it  was  not  till  some  days  after  her  return  home  that 
Marcella  had  realised  a  tenth  part  of  what  her  mother  had  under- 
gone since  the  disastrous  spring  of  the  murder. 


CHAP.  I  MARCELLA  485 

She  passed  now  from  the  subject  of  the  nurse  with  a  half-tiinid 
remark  about  "  expense." 

"Oh!  the  expense  doesn't  matter!"  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  as  she 
stood  absently  before  the  lately  kindled  fire,  warming  her  chilled 
fingers  at  the  blaze. 

"Papa  is  more  at  ease  in  those  ways?"  Marcella  ventured. 
And  kneeling  down  beside  her  mother  she  gently  chafed  one  of 
the  cold  hands. 

"  There  seems  to  be  enough  for  wliat  is  wanted,"  said  Mrs. 
Boyce,  bearing  the  chafing  with  patience.  "Your  father,  I  believe, 
has  made  great  progress  this  year  in  freeing  the  estate.  Thank 
you,  my  dear.     I  am  not  cold  now." 

And  she  gently  withdrew  her  hand. 

Marcella,  indeed,  had  already  noticed  that  there  were  now  no 
weeds  on  the  garden-paths,  that  instead  of  one  gardener  there  were 
three,  that  the  old  library  had  been  decently  patched  and  restored, 
that  there  vtfas  another  servant,  that  William,  grown  into  a  very 
tolerable  footman,  wore  a  reputable  coat,  and  that  a  plain  but 
adequate  carriage  and  horse  had  met  her  at  the  station.  Her  pity 
even  undei'stood  that  part  of  her  father's  bitter  resentment  of  his 
ever-advancing  disablement  came  from  his  feeling  that  here  at 
last  —  just  as  death  was  in  sight  —  he,  that  squalid  failure,  Dick 
Boyce,  was  making  a  success  of  something. 

Presently,  as  she  knelt  befoi'e  the  fire,  a  question  escaped  her, 
which,  when  it  was  spoken,  she  half  regretted. 

"Has  papa  been  able  to  do  anything  for  the  cottages  yet?" 

"  I  don't  think  so,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  calmly.  After  a  minute's 
pause  she  added,  "  That  will  be  for  your  reign,  my  dear." 

Marcella  looked  up  with  a  sharp  thrill  of  pain. 

"Papa  is  better,  mamma,  and  —  and  I  don't  know  what  you 
mean.     I  shall  never  reign  here  without  you." 

Mrs.  Boyce  began  to  fidget  with  the  rings  on  her  thin  left 
hand. 

"  When  Mellor  ceases  to  be  your  father's  it  will  be  yours,"  she 
said,  not  wdthout  a  certain  sharp  decision;  "that  was  settled  long 
ago.  I  must  be  free  —  and  if  you  are  to  do  anything  with  this 
place,  you  must  give  your  youth  and  strength  to  it.  And  your 
father  is  not  better  —  excep.t  for  the  moment.  Dr.  Clarke  exactly 
foretold  the  course  of  his  illness  to  me  two  years  ago,  on  my 
urgent  request.  He  may  live  four  months  —  six,  if  we  can  get 
him  to  the  South.     More  is  impossible." 

There  was  something  ghastly  in  her  dry  composure.  ^Marcella 
caught  her  hand  again  and  leant  her  trembling  young  cheek 
against  it. 

"I  could  not  live  here  without  you,  mamma!  " 


486  MARCELLA  book  iv 

Mrs.  Boyce  could  not  for  once  repress  the  inner  fever  which  in 
general  her  will  controlled  so  well. 

"  I  hardly  think  it  would  matter  to  you  so  much,  my  dear." 

Marcella  shrank. 

"  I  don't  wonder  you  say  that !  "  she  said  in  a  low  voice.  "  Do 
you  think  it  was  all  a  mistake,  mamma,  my  going  away  eighteen 
months  ago  —  a  wrong  act  ?  " 

JVIi'S.  Boyce  grew  restless. 

"I  judge  nobody,  my  dear!  —  unless  I  am  obliged.  As  you 
know,  I  am  for  liberty  —  above  all  " —  she  spoke  with  emphasis  — 
"  for  letting  the  past  alone.  But  I  imagine  you  must  certainly 
have  learnt  to  do  without  us.     Now  I  ought  to  go  to  your  father." 

But  Marcella  held  her. 

"Do  you  remember  in  the  Purgatorio,  mamma,  the  lines  about 
the  loser  in  the  game :  '  "When  tlie  game  of  dice  breaks  up,  he  who 
lost  lingers  sorrowfully  behind,  going  over  the  throws,  and  learn- 
ing by  his  grief '  ?    Do  you  remember  ?  " 

Mrs.  Boyce  looked  down  upon  her,  involuntarily  a  little  curious, 
a  little  nervous,  but  assenting.  It  was  one  of  the  inconsistencies 
of  her  strange  character  that  she  had  all  her  life  been  a  persistent 
Dante  student.  The  taste  for  the  most  strenuous  and  passionate 
of  poets  had  developed  in  her  happy  youth  ;  it  had  survived  through 
the  loneliness  of  her  middle  life.  Like  everything  else  personal  to 
herself  she  never  spoke  of  it;  but  the  little  worn  books  on  her 
table  had  been  familiar  to  Marcella  from  a  child. 

"E  tristo  impara?"  repeated  Marcella,  her  voice  wavering. 
"  Mamma"  —  she  laid  hisr  face  against  her  mother's  dress  again  — 
"  I  have  lost  more  throws  than  you  think  in  the  last  two  years. 
Won't  you  believe  I  may  have  learnt  a  little?" 

She  raised  her  eyes  to  her  mother's  pinched  and  mask-like  face. 
Mrs.  Boyce's  lips  moved  as  though  she  would  have  asked  a  ques- 
tion. But  she  did  not  ask  it.  She  drew,  instead,  the  stealthy 
breath  INIarcella  knew  well  —  the  breath  of  one  who  has  measured 
precisely  her  own  powers  of  endurance,  and  will  not  risk  them  for 
a  moment  by  any  digression  into  alien  fields  of  emotion. 

"  Well,  but  one  expects  persons  like  you  to  learn,"  she  said,  with 
a  light,  cold  manner,  which  made  the  w^ords  mere  convention. 
There  was  silence  an  instant ;  then,  probably  to  release  herself, 
her  hand  just  touched  her  daughter's  hair.  "Now,  wall  you  come 
up  in  half  an  hour?  That  was  twelve  striking,  and  Emma  is 
never  quite  punctual  with  his  food." 

Marcella  went  to  her  father  at  the  hour  named.  She  found  him 
in  his  wheeled  cliair,  beside  a  window  opened  to  the  sun,  and  over- 
looking the  Cedar  Garden.     The  room  in  which  he  sat  was  the 


CHAP.  1  MARCELLA  487 

state  bedroom  of  the  old  house.  It  had  a  marvellous  paper  of 
branching  trees  and  parrots  and  red-robed  Chinamen,  in  the  taste 
of  the  morning  room  downstairs,  a  carved  four-post  bed,  a  grate 
adorned  with  purplish  Dutch  tiles,  an  array  of  family  miniatures 
over  the  mantelpiece,  and  on  a  neighbouring  wall  a  rack  of  old 
swords  and  rapiers.  The  needlework  hangings  of  the  bed  were 
fall  of  holes ;  the  seats  of  the  Chippendale  chairs  were  frayed  or 
tattered.  But,  none  the  less,  the  inalienable  character  and  dignity 
of  his  sleeping-room  were  a  bitter  satisfaction  to  llichard  Boyce, 
even  in  his  sickness.  After  all  said  and  done,  he  was  king  here  in 
his  father's  and  grandfather's  place ;  ruling  where  they  ruled,  and 
—  whether  they  would  or  no  —  dying  where  they  died,  with  the 
same  family  faces  to  bear  him  witness  from  the  walls,  and  the  same 
vault  awaiting  him. 

When  his  daughter  entered,  he  turned  his  head,  and  his  eyes, 
deep  and  black  still  as  ever,  but  sunk  in  a  yellow  relic  of  a  face, 
showed  a  certain  agitation.  She  was  disagreeably  aware  that  his 
thoughts  were  much  occupied  with  her ;  that  he  was  full  of  griev- 
ance towards  her,  and  would  probably  before  long  bring  the  pathos 
of  his  situation  as  well  as  the  weight  of  his  dying  authority  to  bear 
upon  her,  for  purposes  she  already  suspected  with  alarm. 

"  Are  you  a  little  easier,  papa?  "  she  said,  as  she  came  up  to  him. 

"  I  should  think  as  a  nurse  you  ought  to  know  better,  my  dear, 
than  to  ask,"  he  said  testily.  "  When  a  person  is  in  my  condition, 
enquiries  of  that  sort  are  a  mockeiy !  " 

"  But  one  may  be  in  less  or  more  pain,"  she  said  gently.  "  I 
hoped  Dr.  Clarke's  treatment  yesterday  might  have  given  you 
some  relief." 

He  did  not  vouchsafe  an  answer.  She  took  some  work  and  sat 
down  by  him.  Mrs.  Boyce,  who  had  been  tidying  a  table  of  food 
and  medicine,  came  and  asked  him  if  he  would  be  wheeled  into 
another  room  across  the  gallery,  which  had  been  arranged  as  a 
sitting-room.     He  shook  his  head  irritably. 

"  I  am  not  fit  for  it.  Can't  you  see  ?  And  I  want  to  speak  to 
Mai'cella." 

Mi's.  Boyce  went  away.  Marcella  waited,  not  without  a  tremor. 
She  was  sitting  in  the  sun,  her  head  bent  over  the  muslin  strings 
she  was  hemming  for  her  nurse's  bonnet.  The  window  was  wide 
open ;  outside,  the  leaves  under  a  w^arm  breeze  wei-e  gently  drift- 
ing down  into  the  Cedar  Garden,  amid  a  tangled  mass  of  flowers, 
mostly  yellow  or  purple.  To  one  side  rose  the  dark  layers  of  the 
cedars ;  to  the  other,  the  grey  front  of  the  library  wing. 

]Mr.  Boyce  looked  at  her  with  the  frown  which  had  now  become 
habitual  to  him,  moved  his  lips  once  or  twice  without  speaking ; 
and  at  last  made  his  effort. 


488  MARCELLA  book  iv 

"  I  should  think,  Marcella,  you  must  often  regret  by  now  the 
step  you  took  eighteen  months  ago  !  " 

She  grew  pale. 

"  How  regret  it,  papa?  "  she  said,  without  looking  up. 

"  Why,  good  God  !  "  he  said  angrily ;  "  I  should  think  the  rea- 
sons for  regret  are  plain  enough.  You  threw  over  a  man  who  was 
devoted  to  you,  and  could  have  given  you  the  finest  position  in  the 
county,  for  the  most  nonsensical  reasons  in  the  world  —  reasons 
that  by  now,  I  am  certain,  you  are  ashamed  of." 

He  saw  her  wince,  and  enjoyed  his  prerogative  of  weakness.  In 
his  normal  health  he  would  never  have  dared  so  to  speak  to  her. 
But  of  late,  during  long  fits  of  feverish  brooding  —  intensified  by 
her  return  home  —  he  had  vowed  to  himself  to  speak  his  mind. 

"Aren't  you  ashamed  of  them?"  he  repeated,  as  she  was  silent. 

She  looked  up. 

"I  am  not  ashamed  of  anything  I  did  to  save  Hurd,  if  that  is 
what  you  mean,  papa." 

Mr.  Boyce's  anger  grew. 

"  Of  course  you  know  what  everybody  said?" 

She  stooped  over  her  work  again,  and  did  not  reply. 

"  It's  no  good  being  sullen  over  it,"  he  said  in  exasperation  ; 
"I'm  your  father,  and  I'm  dying.  I  have  a  right  to  question  you. 
It's  my  duty  to  see  something  settled,  if  I  can,  before  I  go.  Is  it 
true  that  all  the  time  you  were  attacking  Raeburn  about  politics 
and  the  reprieve,  and  what  not,  you  were  really  behaving  as  you 
never  ought  to  have  behaved,  with  Harry  Wharton?" 

He  gave  out  the  words  with  sharp  emphasis,  and,  bending  towards 
her,  he  laid  an  emaciated  hand  upon  her  arm. 

"  What  use  is  there,  papa,  in  going  back  to  these  things  ?  "  she 
said,  driven  to  bay,  her  colour  going  and  coming.  "I  may  have 
been  wrong  in  a  hundred  ways,  but  you  never  understood  that  the 
real  reason  for  it  all  was  that  —  that  —  I  never  was  in  love  with 
Mr.  Raeburn." 

"  Then  why  did  you  accept  him  ? "  He  fell  back  against  his 
pillows  with  a  jerk. 

"As  to  that,  I  will  confess  my  sins  readily  enough,"  she  said, 
while  her  lip  trembled,  and  he  saw  the  tears  spring  into  her  eyes. 
"I  accepted  him  for  what  you  just  now  called  his  position  in  the 
county,  though  not  quite  in  that  way  either." 

He  was  silent  a  little,  then  he  began  again  in  a  voice  which  grad- 
xially  became  unsteady  from  self-pity. 

"  Well,  now  look  here  !  I  have  been  thinking  about  this  matter 
a  great  deal  —  and  God  knows  I've  time  to  think  and  cause  to 
think,  considering  the  state  I'm  in  —  and  I  see  no  reason  whatever 
why  I  should  not  try — before  I  die  —  to  put  tliis  thing  straight. 


CHAP.  I  MARCELLA  489 

That  man  was  head  over  ears  in  love  with  you,  madly  in  love  with 
you.  I  used  to  watch  him,  and  I  know.'  Of  course  you  offended 
and  distressed  hiui  greatly.  He  could  never  have  expected  such 
conduct  from  you  or  any  one  else.  But  he's  not  the  man  to  change 
round  easily,  or  to  take  up  with  any  one  else.  Now,  if  you  regret 
what  you  did  or  the  way  in  which  you  did  it,  why  shouldn't  I  —  a 
dying  man  may  be  allowed  a  little  licence  I  should  think  !  —  give 
him  a  hint?" 

"  Pupa  !  "  cried  INIarcella,  dropping  her  work,  and  looking  at  him 
with  a  pale,  indignant  passion,  which  a  year  ago  would  have  quelled 
him  utterly.     But  he  held  up  his  hand. 

"  Now  just  let  me  finish.  It  would  be  no  good  my  doing  a  thing 
of  this  kind  wdthout  saying  something  to  you  first,  because  you'd 
find  it  out,  and  your  pride  would  be  the  ruin  of  it.  You  always 
had  a  demoniacal  pride,  Marcella,  even  when  you  wei'e  a  tiny  child ; 
but  if  you  make  up  your  mind  now  to  let  me  tell  him  you  regret  what 
you  did  —  just  that —  you'll  make  him  happy,  and  yourself,  for  you 
know  very  well  he's  a  man  of  the  highest  character  —  and  your  poor 
father,  who  never  did  you  much  harm  anyway !  "  His  voice  faltered. 
"I'd  manage  it  so  that  there  should  be  nothing  humiliating  to  you 
in  it  whatever.  As  if  there  could  be  anything  humiliating  in 
confessing  such  a  mistake  as  that ;  besides,  what  is  there  to  be 
ashamed  of?  You're  no  pauper.  I've  pulled  Mellor  out  of  the 
mud  for  you,  though  you  and  your  mother  do  give  me  credit  for  so 
precious  little ! " 

He  lay  back,  trembling  with  fatigue,  yet  still  staring  at  her  with 
glittering  eyes,  while  his  hand  on  the  invalid  table  fixed  to  the  side 
of  his  chair  shook  piteously.  Marcella  dreaded  the  effect  the  whole 
scene  might  have  upon  him  ;  but,  now  they  were  in  the  midst  of  it, 
both  feeling  for  herself  and  prudence  for  him  drove  her  into  the 
strongest  speech  she  could  devise. 

"Papa,  if  anything  of  that  sort  were  done,  I  should  take  care 
Mr.  Raeburn  knew  I  had  had  nothing  to  do  with  it  —  in  such 
a  way  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to  carrj'  it  further. 
Dear  papa,  don't  think  of  such  a  thing  any  more.  Because  I 
treated  Mr.  Raeburn  unjustly  last  year,  are  we  now  to  harass  and 
persecute  him  ?  I  would  sooner  disappear  from  everybody  I  know 
—  from  you  and  mamma,  from  England — and  never  be  heard 
of  again." 

She  stopped  a  moment  —  struggling  for  composure  —  that  she 
might  not  excite  him  too  much. 

"Besides,  it  would  be  absurd!  You  forget  I  have  seen  a  good 
deal  of  Mr.  Raeburn  lately — while  I  have  been  with  the  Win- 
terbournes.  He  has  entirely  given  up  all  thought  of  me.  Even 
my  vanity  could  see  that  plainly  enough.     His -best  friends  expect 


490  MARCELLA  book  iv 

him  to  marry  a  bright,  fascinating  little  creature  of  whom  I 
saw  a  good  deal  in  James  Street  —  a  Miss  Macdonald." 

"  Miss  how  —  much  ?  "  he  asked  roughly. 

She  repeated  .the  name,  and  then  dwelt,  with  a  certain  amount 
of  confusion  and  repetition,  upon  the  probabilities  of  the  matter 
—  half  conscious  all  the  time  that  she  was  playing  a  part,  per- 
suading herself  and  him  of  something  she  was  not  at  all  clear 
about  in  her  own  inner  mind  —  but  miserably,  passionately  deter- 
mined to  go  through  with  it  all  the  same. 

He  bore  with  what  she  said  to  him,  half  disappointed  and 
depressed,  yet  also  half  incredulous.  He  had  always  been  obsti- 
nate, and  the  approach  of  death  had  emphasised  his  few  salient 
qualities,  as  decay  had  emphasised  the  bodily  frame.  He  said  to 
himself  stubbornly  that  he  would  find  some  way  yet  of  testing 
the  matter  in  spite  of  her.     He  would  think  it  out. 

Meanwhile,  step  by  step,  she  brought  the  conversation  to  less 
dangerous  things,  and  she  was  finally  gliding  into  some  chat  about 
the  Winterbournes  when  he  interrupted  her  abruptly  — 

"  And  that  other  fellow —  Wiiarton.  Your  mother  tells  me  you 
have  seen  him  in  London.     Has  he  been  making  love  to  you?" 

"Suppose  I  won't  be  catechised!"  she  said  gaily,  determined 
to  allow  no  more  tragedy  of  any  kind.  "  Besides,  papa,  j^ou  can't 
read  your  gossip  as  good  people  should.  Mr.  Wharton's  engage- 
ment to  a  certain  Lady  Selina  Farrell  —  a  distant  cousin  of  the 
Winterbournes  —  was  announced  in  several  papers  with  great 
plainness  three  weeks  ago." 

At  that  moment  her  mother  came  in,  looking  anxiously  at  them 
both,  and  half  resentfully  at  Marcella.  Marcella,  sore  and  bruised 
in  every  moral  fibre,  got  up  to  go. 

Something  in  the  involuntary  droop  of  her  beautiful  head  as 
she  left  the  room  drew  her  father's  eyes  after  her,  and  for  the 
time  his  feeling  towards  her  softened  curiously.  Well,  she  had 
not  made  very  much  of  her  life  so  far!  That  old  strange  jealousy 
of  her  ability,  her  beauty,  and  her  social  place,  he  had  once  felt 
so  hotly,  died  away.  He  wished  her,  indeed,  to  be  Lady  Maxwell. 
Yet  for  the  moment  there  was  a  certain  balm  in  the  idea  that 
she  too  —  her  mother's  daughter  —  with  her  Merritt  blood  —  could 
be  unlucky. 

Marcella  went  about  all  day  under  a  vague  sense  of  impending 
trouble  —  the  result,  no  doubt,  of  that  intolerable  threat  of  her 
father's,  against  which  she  was,  after  all,  so  defenceless. 

But  whatever  it  was,  it  made  her  all  the  more  nervous  and 
sensitive  about  the  Hallins;  about  her  one  true  friend,  to  whom 
she  was  slowly  revealing  herself,  even  without  speech ;  whose  spir- 
itual strength  had  been  guiding  and  training  her;  whose  physical 


CHAP.  I  MARCELLA  491 

weakness  had  drawn  to  him  the  maternal,  the  spending  instincts 
wliich  lier  nursing  life  had  so  richly  developed. 

She  strolled  down  the  drive  to  meet  the  j^ost.  But  there  were 
no  letters  from  London,  and  she  came  in,  inclined  to  be  angry 
indeed  with  Louis  Craven  for  deserting  her,  but  saying  to  herself 
at  the  same  time  that  she  must  have  heard  if  anything  had  gone 
wrong. 

An  hour  or  so  later,  just  as  the  October  evening  Mas  closing  in, 
she  was  sitting  dreaming  over  a  dim  wood-fire  in  the  drawing- 
room.  Her  father,  as  might  have  been  expected,  had  been  very 
tired  and  comatose  all  day.  Her  mother  was  with  him ;  the  Lon- 
don nurse  was  to  sit  up,  and  ^larcella  felt  herself  forlorn  and 
superfluous. 

Suddenly,  in  the  silence  of  the  house,  she  heard  the  front-door 
bell  ring.  There  was  a  step  in  the  hall  —  she  sprang  up  —  the 
door  opened,  and  AVilliam,  with  fluttered  emphasis,  annomiced  — 

"  Lord  Maxwell !  " 

In  the  dusk  she  could  just  see  his  tall  form  — the  short  pause  as 
he  perceived  her  —  then  her  hand  was  in  his,  and  the  paralysing 
astonishment  of  that  first  instant  had  disappeared  under  the  grave 
emotion  of  his  look. 

"  Will  you  excuse  me,"  he  said,  "for  coming  at  this  hour?  But 
I  am  afraid  you  have  heard  nothing  yet  of  our  bad  news — and 
Hallin  himself  was  anxious  1  should  come  and  tell  you.  Miss 
Hallin  could  not  write,  and  ]\Ir.  Craven,  I  was  to  tell  you,  had 
been  ill  for  a  week  with  a  chill.  You  haven't  then  seen  any 
account  of  the  lecture  in  the  papers  ?  " 

"  No ;  I  have  looked  yesterday  and  to-day  in  our  paper,  but 
there  was  nothing —  " 

"  Some  of  the  lladical  papers  reported  it.  I  hoped  you  might 
have  seen  it.  But  when  we  got  down  here  this  afternoon,  and 
there  was  nothing  from  you,  both  iMiss  Hallin  and  Edward  felt 
sure  yon  had  not  heard  —  and  I  walked  over.  It  was  a  most 
painful,  distressing  scene,  and  he  —  is  very  ill." 

"  But  you  have  brought  him  to  the  Court?"  she  said  trembling, 
lost  in  the  thought  of  Hallin,  her  quick  breath  coming  and  going. 
"He  was  able  to  bear  the  journey?  AVill  you  tell  me?  —  will  you 
sit  down  ?  " 

He  thanked  her  hurriedly,  and  took  a  seat  opposite  to  her, 
within  the  ciicle  of  the  firelight,  so  that  she  saw  his  deep  mourn- 
ing and  the  look  of  repressed  suffering. 

"  The  whole  thing  was  extraordinary  —  I  can  hardly  now  describe 
it,"  he  said,  holding  his  hat  in  his  hands  and  staring  into  the  fire. 
"It  began  excellently.  There  was  a  very  full  room.  Bennett  "was 
in  the  chair  —  and  Edward  seemed  much  as  usual.    He  had  been 


492  MARCELLA  book  iv 

looking  desperately  ill,  but  he  declared  that  he  was  sleeping  better, 
and  that  his  sister  and  I  coddled  hiin.  Then,  —  directly  he  was 
well  started  !  —  I  felt  somehow  that  the  audience  was  very  hostile. 
And  he  evidently  felt  it  more  and  more.  There  was  a  good  deal 
of  interruption  and  hardly  any  cheers  —  and  I  saw  after  a  little  — 
I  was  sitting  not  far  behind  him  —  that  he  was  discouraged  — 
that  he  had  lost  touch.  It  was  presently  clear,  indeed,  that  the 
real  interest  of  the  meeting  lay  not  in  the  least  in  what  he  had  to 
say,  but  in  the  debate  that  was  to  follow.  They  meant  to  let  him 
have  his  hour  —  but  not  a  minute  more.  I  watched  the  men  about 
me,  and  I  could  see  them  following  the  clock  —  thirsting  for  their 
turn.  Nothing  that  he  said  seemed  to  penetrate  them  in  the 
smallest  degree.  He  was  there  merely  as  a  ninepin  to  be  knocked 
over.  I  never  saw  a  meeting  so  possessed  with  a  madness  of  fanat- 
ical conviction  —  it  was  amazing  !  " 

He  paused,  looking  sadly  before  him.  She  made  a  little  move- 
ment, and  he  roused  himself  instantly. 

"It  was  just  a  few  minutes  before  he  was  to  sit  down  —  I  was 
thankful !  —  when  suddenly —  I  heard  his  voice  change.  I  do  not 
know  now  what  happened  —  but  I  believe  he  completely  lost  con- 
sciousness of  the  scene  before  him  —  the  sense  of  strain,  of  exliaus- 
tion,  of  making  no  way,  must  have  snapped  something.  He 
began  a  sort  of  confession  —  a  reverie  in  public  —  about  himself, 
his  life,  his  thoughts,  his  prayers,  his  hopes  —  mostly  his  re- 
ligious hopes  —  for  the  working  man,  for  England  —  I  never 
heard  anything  of  the  kind  from  him  before  —  you  know  his  re- 
serve. It  was  so  intimate  —  so  painful  —  oh  !  so  painful !  "  —  he 
drew  himself  together  with  an  involuntary  shudder  —  "  before  this 
crowd,  this  eager  hostile  crowd  which  was  only  pining  for  him  to 
sit  down — -to  get  out  of  their  way.  The  men  near  me  began 
to  look  at  each  other  and  titter.  They  wondered  what  he  meant 
by  maundering  on  like  that — 'damned  canting  stuff'  —  I  heard 
one  man  near  me  call  it.  I  tore  off  a  bit  of  paper,  and  passed  a 
line  to  Bennett  asking  him  to  get  hold  of  Edward,  to  stop  it.  But 
I  think  Bennett  had  rather  lost  his  presence  of  mind,  and  I  saw 
him  look  back  at  me  and  sliake  his  head.  Then  time  was  up,  and 
they  began  to  shout  him  down." 

Marcella  made  an  exclamation  of  horror.     He  turned  to  her. 

"  I  think  it  was  the  most  tragic  scene  I  ever  saw,"  he  said  with 
a  feeling  as  simple  as  it  was  intense.  "  This  crowd  so  angry  and 
excited  —  without  a  particle  of  understanding  or  sympathy  — 
laughing,  and  shouting  at  him  —  and  he  in  the  midst  — white  as 
death  —  talking  this  strange  nonsense  —  his  voice  floating  in  a  high 
key,  quite  unlike  itself.  At  last  just  as  I  was  getting  up  to  go  to  him, 
I  saw  Bennett  rise.    But  we  were  both  too  late.    He  fell  at  oui'  feet  1 " 


CHAP.  I  .  MARCELLA  493 

Marcella  gave  an  involuntary  sob  !  "  AVhat  a  lioi  ror  !  "  she  said, 
"  what  a  martyrdom !  " 

"  It  was  just  that,"  he  answered  in  a  low  voice  —  "  It  was  a 
niartj'rdora.  And  when  one  thinks  of  the  way  in  which  for  years 
past  he  has  held  these  big  meetings  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand,  and 
now,  because  he  crosses  their  passion,  their  Avhini,  —  no  kindness! 
—  no  patience  —  nothing  but  a  blind  hostile  fury!  Yet  they 
thought  him  a  traitor,  no  doubt.     Oh !  it  was  all  a  tragedy  !  " 

There  was  silence  an  instant.     Then  he  resumed : 

"We  got  him  hito  the  back  room.  Luckily  there  was  a  doctor 
on  the  platform.  It  was  heart  failure,  of  course,  with  brain  prostra- 
tion. We  managed  to  get  him  home,  and  Susie  Hallin  and  I  sat  up. 
He  was  delirious  all  night ;  but  yesterday  he  rallied,  and  last  night 
he  begged  us  to  move  him  out  of  London  if  we  could.  So  we  got 
two  doctors  and  an  invalid  carriage,  and  by  three  this  afternoon  we 
were  all  at  the  Court.  INIy  aunt  was  ready  for  him — his  sister  is 
there  —  and  a  nurse.  Clarke  was  there  to  meet  him.  He  thinks 
he  cannot  possibly  live  more  than  a  few  weeks  —  possibly  even  a 
few  days.     The  shock  and  strain  have  been  irreparable." 

Marcella  lay  back  in  her  chair,  struggling  with  her  grief,  her 
head  and  face  turned  away  from  him,  her  eyes  hidden  by  her 
handkerchief.  Then  in  some  mysterious  way  she  was  suddenly 
conscious  that  Aldous  was  no  longer  thinking  of  Hallin,  but  of 
her. 

"  He  wants  very  much  to  see  you,"  he  said,  bending  towards  her ; 
"but  I  know  that  you  have  yourself  serious  illness  to  nurse.  For- 
give me  for  not  having  enquired  after  Mr.  Boyce.  I  trust  he  is 
better  ?  " 

She  sat  up,  red-eyed,  but^,  mistress  of  herself.  The  tone  had  been 
all  gentleness,  but  to  her  quivering  sense  some  slight  indefinable 
change  —  coldness  —  had  passed  into  it. 

"He  is  better,  thank  you  —  for  the  present.  And  my  mother 
does  not  let  me  do  very  much.  We  have  a  nurse  too.  When 
shall  I  come  ?  " 

He  rose. 

"Could  you  —  come  to-morrow  afternoon?  There  is  to  be  a 
consultation  of  doctors  in  the  morning,  which  will  tire  him. 
About  six?  —  that  was  what  he  said.  He  is  very  weak,  but  in  the 
day  quite  conscious  and  rational.  My  aunt  begged  me  lo  say  how 
glad  she  would  be  —  " 

He  paused.  An  invincible  awkwardness  took  j^ossession  of  both 
of  them.  She  longed  to  speak  to  him  of  his  grandfather  but  could 
not  find  the  courage. 

When  he  was  gone,  she,  standing  alone  in  the  firelight,  gave 
one  passionate  thought  to  the  fact  that  so  —  in  this  tragic  way  — 


494  MARCELLA  book  iv 

they  had  met  again  in  this  room  where  he  had  spoken  to  her  his 
last  woixls  as  a  lover ;  and  then,  steadily,  she  put  everything  out 
of  her  mind  but  her  friend  — and  death. 


CHAPTER   n 

Mrs.  Boyce  received  Marcella's  news  with  more  sympathy  than 
her  daughter  had  dared  to  hope  for,  and  she  made  no  remark 
upon  Aldous  himself  and  his  visit,  for  which  Marcella  was  grate- 
ful to  her. 

As  they  left  the  dining-room,  after  their  short  evening  meal, 
to  go  up  to  Mr.  Boyce,  Marcella  detained  her  mother  an  instant. 

"Mamma,  will  you  please  not  tell  papa  that  —  that  Lord  Max- 
well came  here  this  afternoon  ?  And  will  you  explain  to  him  w^hy 
I  am  going  there  to-morrow  ?  " 

Mrs.  Boyce's  fair  cheek  flushed.  Marcella  saw  that  she  under- 
stood. 

"  If  I  were  you,  I  should  not  let  your  father  talk  to  you  any 
more  about  those  things,"  she  said  with  a  certain  proud  impatience. 

"If  I  can  help  it!"  exclaimed  Marcella.  "Will  you  tell  him, 
mamma,  —  about  Mr.  Hallin  ?  —  and  how  good  he  has  been  to 
me  ?  " 

Then  her  voice  failed  her,  and,  hurriedly  leaving  her  mother 
at  the  top  of  the  stairs,  she  went  away  by  herself  to  struggle  with 
a  grief  and  smart  almost  unbearable. 

That  night  passed  quietly  at  the  Court.  Hallin  was  at  intervals 
slightly  delirious,  but  less  so  than  the  night  before ;  and  in  the 
early  morning  the  young  doctor,  who  Jiad  sat  up  with  him,  re- 
ported him  to  Aldous  as  calmer  and  a  little  stronger.  But  the 
heart  mischief  was  hopeless,  and  might  bring  the  bruised  life  to 
an  end  at  any  moment. 

He  could  not,  however,  be  kept  in  bed,  owing  to  restlessness 
and  difficulty  of  breathing,  and  by  midday  he  was  in  Aldous's 
sitting-room,  drawn  close  to  the  window,  that  he  might  delight 
his  eyes  with  the  wide  range  of  wood  and  plain  that  it  commanded. 
After  a  very  wet  September,  the  October  days  were  now  follov^'ing 
each  other  in  a  settled  and  sunny  peace.  The  great  woods  of  the 
Chilterns,  just  yellowing  towards  that  full  golden  moment  — 
short,  like  all  perfection,  —  which  only  beeches  know,  rolled  down 
the  hill-slopes  to  the  plain,  their  curving  lines  cut  here  and  there 
by  straight  fir  stems,  drawn  clear  and  dai'k  on  the  pale  back- 
ground of  sky  and  lowland.  In  the  park,  immediately  below  the 
window,  groups  of  wild  cherry  and  of  a  slender-leaved  maple  made 
spots  of  "  flame  and  amethyst "  on  the  smooth  falling  lawns ;  the 


CHAP.  11  MARCELLA  495 

deer  wandered  and  fed,  and  the  squirrels  were  playing  and  feast- 
ing among  the  beech  nuts. 

Since  Aldous  and  his  poor  sister  had  brought  him  home  from 
the  Bethnal  Green  hall  in  which  the  Land  Kei'orm  Conference  had 
been  held,  Hallin  had  spoken  little,  except  in  delirium,  and  that 
little  had  beeu  marked  by  deep  and  painful  depression.  But  this 
morning,  when  Aldous  was  sumnioned  by  the  nurse,  and  fpund 
him  propped  up  by  the  window,  in  front  of  the  great  view,  he  saw 
gracious  signs  of  change.  Death,  indeed,  already  in  possession, 
looked  from  the  blue  eyes  so  plainly  that  Aldous,  on  his  first 
entrance,  had  need  of  all  his  own  strength  of  will  to  keep  his 
composure.  But  with  the  cei'tainty  of  that  great  release,  and  with 
the  abandonment  of  all  physical  and  mental  struggle  —  the  struggle 
of  a  lifetime  —  Hallin  seemed  to-day  to  have  recovered  something 
of  his  characteristic  serenity  and  blitheness  —  the  temper  which 
had  made  him  the  leader  of  his  Oxford  contemporaries,  and  the 
dear  comrade  of  his  friend's  life. 

When  Aldous  came  in,  Hallin  smiled  and  lifted  a  feeble  hand 
towards  the  park  and  the  woods. 

"  Could  it  have  greeted  me  more  kindly,"  he  said,  in  his  whis- 
pering voice,  "  for  the  end  ?  " 

Aldous  sat  down  beside  him,  pressing  his  hand,  and  there  was 
silence  till  Hallin  spoke  again. 

"  You  will  keep  this  sitting-room,  Aldous  ?  " 

"  Always." 

"  I  am  glad.  I  have  known  you  in  it  so  long.  What  good  talks 
we  have  had  here  in  the  old  hot  days !  I  was  hot,  at  least,  and 
you  bore  with  me.  Land  Reform  —  Churcli  Reform  —  Wages  Re- 
form —  we  have  threshed  them  all  out  in  this  room.  Do  you  remem- 
ber that  night  I  kept  you  up  till  it  was  too  late  to  go  to  bed,  talking 
over  my  Church  plans  ?  How  full  I  was  of  it !  —  the  Church  that 
was  to  be  the  people  —  reflecting  their  life,  their  differences  —  gov- 
erned by  them  —  growing  with  them.  You  wouldn't  join  it,  Aldous 
—  our  poor  little  Association  !  " 

Aldous's  strong  lip  quivered. 

"  Let  me  think  of  something  1  did  join  in,"  he  said. 

Hallin's  look  shone  on  him  with  a  wonderful  affection. 

"  Was  there  anything  else  you  didn't  help  in  ?  I  don't  remem- 
ber it.  I've  dragged  you  into  most  things.  You  never  minded 
failure.  And  I  have  not  had  so  much  of  it  —  not  till  this  last. 
This  has  been  failure  —  absolute  and  complete." 

But  there  was  no  darkening  of  exjiression.  He  sat  quietly 
smiling. 

"  Do  you  suppose  anybody  who  could  look  beyond  the  hioment 
would  dreain  of  calling  it  failure  ?  "  said  Aldous,  with  difficulty. 


496  MAECELLA  book  iv 

Hallin  shook  his  head  gently,  and  was  silent  for  a  little  time, 
gathering  strength  and  breath  again. 

"  I  ought  to  suffer  "  —  he  said,  presently.  "  Last  week  I  dreaded 
my  own  feeling  if  I  should  fail  or  break  down  —  more  than  the 
failure  itself.  But  since  yesterday  —  last  night  —  I  have  no  more 
regrets.  I  see  that  my  power  is  gone  —  that  if  I  were  to  live  I 
could  no  longer  carry  on  the  battle  —  or  my  old  life.  I  am  out  of 
touch.  Those  whom  I  love  and  would  serve,  put  me  aside.  Those 
who  invite  me,  I  do  not  cai'e  to  join.  So  I  drop  —  into  the  gulf  — 
and  the  pageant  rushes  on.  But  the  curious  thing  is  now —  I  have 
no  suffering.  And  as  to  the  future  —  do  you  remember  Jowett  in 
the  Introduction  to  the  Plisedo  —  " 

He  feebly  pointed  to  a  book  beside  him,  which  Aldous  took  up. 
Hallin  guided  him  and  he  read  — 

"  Most  persons  rvhen  the  last  hour  comes  are  resigned  to  the  order  of 
nature  and  the  will  of  God.  They  are  not  thinking  of  Dante's  ^Inferno  ' 
or  ' Paradiso,'  or  of  the  '■Pilgrim's  Progress.'  Heaven  and  Hell  are 
not  realities  to  them,  but  ivords  or  ideas  —  the  outward  symbols  of 
some  great  mystery,  they  hardly  knoio  what." 

"  It  is  so  with  me,"  said  Hallin,  smiling,  as,  at  his  gesture, 
Aldous  laid  the  book  aside;  "yet  not  quite.  To  my  mind,  that 
mystery  indeed  is  all  unknown  and  dark  —  but  to  the  heart  it 
seems  unveiled  —  with  the  heart,  I  see." 

A  little  later  Aldous  was  startled  to  hear  hitn  say,  very  clearly 
and  quickly  : 

"Do  you  remember  that  this  is  the  fifth  of  October?" 

Aldous  drew  his  chair  closer,  that  he  might  not  raise  his 
voice. 

"Yes,  Ned." 

"  Two  years,  wasn't  it,  to-day  ?  Will  you  forgive  me  if  I  speak 
of  her  ?  " 

"  You  shall  say  anything  you  will." 

"  Did  you  notice  that  piece  of  news  I  sent  you,  in  my  last  letter 
to  Geneva?     But  of  course  you  did.     Did  it  please  you?" 

"  Yes,  I  was  glad  of  it,"  said  Aldous,  after  a  pause,  "  extremely 
glad.     I  thought  she  had  escaped  a  gi-eat  danger." 

Hallin  studied  his  face  closely. 

"She  is  free,  Aldous  —  and  she  is  a  noble  creature  —  she  has 
learnt  from  life  —  and  from  death  —  this  last  two  years.  And  — 
you  still  love  her.     Is  it  right  to  make  no  more  effort?" 

Aldous  saw  the  perspiration  standing  on  the  wasted  brow  — 
would  have  given  the  world  to  be  able  to  content  or  cheer  him 
—  yet  would  not,  for  the  world,  at  such  a  moment  be  false  to  his 
own  feeling  or  deceive  his  questioner. 

"I  think  it  is  right,"  he  said  deliberately,  "  —  for  a  good  many 


CHAP.  II  MARCELLA  497 

reasons,  Edward.     In  the  first  place  I  have  not  the  smallest  cause 

—  not  the  fraction  of  a  cause  —  to  suppose  that  I  could  occupy  with 
her  now  any  other  ground  than  that  I  occupied  two  years  ago. 
She  has  been  kind  and  friendly  to  uie  —  on  the  whole  —  since  we 
met  in  London.  She  has  even  expressed  regret  for  last  year  — 
meaning,  of  course,  as  I  understood,  for  the  pain  and  trouble  that 
may  be  said  to  have  come  from  her  not  knowing  her  own  mind. 
She  wished  that  we  should  be  friends.  And"  —  he  turned  his 
head  away  —  "no  doubt  I  could  be,  in  time.  .  .  .     But,  you  see 

—  in  all  that,  there  is  nothing  whatever  to  bring  me  forward  again. 
My  fatal  mistake  last  year,  I  think  now,  lay  in  my  accepting 
what  she  gave  me  —  accepting  it  so  readily,  so  graspingly  even. 
That  was  my  fault,  my  blindness,  and  —  it  was  as  unjust  to  her 

—  as  it  was  hopeless  for  myself.  For  hers  is  a  nature  "  —  his  eyes 
came  back  to  his  friend ;  his  voice  took  a  new  force  and  energy 

—  "which,  in  love  at  any  rate,  will  give  all  or  nothing  —  and  will 
never  be  hapj^y  itself,  or  bring  happiness,  till  it  gives  all.  That  is 
what  last  year  taught  me.  So  that  even  if  she  —  out  of  kindness 
or  remorse  for  giving  pain  —  were  willing  to  renew  the  old  tie  —  I 
should  be  her  worst  enemy  and  my  own  if  I  took  a  single  step 
towards  it.  Marriage  on  such  terms  as  I  was  thankful  for  last 
year,  would  be  humiliation  to  me,  and  bring  no  gain  to  her.  It 
will  never  serve  a  man  with  her"  —  his  voice  broke  into  emotion 

—  "that  he  should  make  no  claims!  Let  him  claim  the  uttermost 
farthing  —  her  whole  self.  If  she  gives  it,  then  he  may  know  what 
love  means ! " 

Hallin  had  listened  intently.  At  Aldous's  last  words  his  ex- 
pression showed  pain  and  perplexit}'.  His  mind  was  full  of  vague 
impressions,  memories,  which  seemed  to  argue  with  and  dispute 
one  of  the  chief  things  Aldous  had  been  saying.  But  they  were 
not  definite  enough  to  be  put  forward.  His  sensitive  chivalrous 
sense,  even  in  this  extreme  weakness,  remembered  the  tragic  weight 
that  attaches  inevitably  to  dying  words.  Let  him  not  do  more 
harm  than  good. 

He  rested  a  little.  They  brought  him  food ;  and  Aldous  sat 
beside  him  making  pretence  to  read,  so  that  he  might  be  encouraged 
to  rest.  His  sister  came  and  went ;  so  did  the  doctor.  But  when 
they  were  once  more  alone,  Hallin  put  out  his  hand  and  touched 
his  companion. 

"What  is  it,  dear  Ned?" 

"Only  one  thing  more,  before  we  leave  it.  Is  that  all  that 
stands  between  you  now  —  the  whole?  You  spoke  to  me  once  in 
the  summer  of  feeling  angry,  more  angry  than  you  could  have 
believed.  Of  course,  I  felt  the  same.  But  just  now  you  spoke  of 
its  all  being  your  fault.  Is  there  anything  changed  in  your  mind?  " 
2k 


498  MAKCELLA  book  iv 

Aldous  hesitated.  It  was  extraordinarily  painful  to  liim  to 
speak  of  the  past,  and  it  troubled  him  that  at  such  a  moment  it 
,  should  trouble  Hallin. 

"  There  is  nothing  changed,  Ned,  except  that  perhaps  time 
makes  some  difference  always.  I  don't  want  now"  —  he  tried  to 
smile  — "as  I  did  then,  to  make  anybody  else  suffer  for  my  suffer- 
ing. But  perhaps  I  marvel  even  more  than  I  did  at  first,  that  — 
that  —  she  could  have  allowed  some  things  to  happen  as  she  did!  " 

The  tone  was  firm  and  vibrating;  and,  in  speaking,  the  whole 
face  had  developed  a  strong  animation  most  passionate  and  human. 

Hallin  sighed. 

"  I  often  think,"  he  said,  "  that  she  was  extraordinarily  immature 
—  much  more  immature  than  most  girls  of  that  age  — as  to  feel- 
ing.    It  was  really  the  brain  that  was  alive." 

Aldous  silently  assented ;  so  much  so  that  Hallin  repented  himself. 

"But  not  now,"  he  said,  in  his  eager  dying  whisper;  "not  now. 
The  plant  is  growing  full  and  tall,  into  the  richest  life." 

Aldous  took  the  wasted  hand  tenderly  in  his  own.  There  was 
something  inexpressibly  touching  in  this  last  wrestle  of  Hallin's 
affection  with  another's  grief.  But  it  filled  Aldous  with  a  kind 
of  remorse,  and  with  the  longing  to  free  him.  from  that,  as  from 
every  other  burden,  in  these  last  precious  hours  of  life.  And  at 
last  he  succeeded,  as  he  thought,  in  drawing  his  mind  away  from 
it.  They  passed  to  other  things.  Hallin,  indeed,  talked  very 
little  more  during  the  day.  He  was  very  restless  and  weak,  but 
not  in  much  positive  suffering.  Aldous  read  to  him  at  intervals, 
from  Isaiah  or  Plato,  the  bright  sleepless  eyes  following  every  word. 

At  last  the  light  began  to  smk.  The  sunset  flooded  in  from 
the  Berkshire  uplands  and  the  far  Oxford  plain,  and  lay  in  gold 
and  purple  on  the  falling  woods  and  the  green  sti-etches  of  the 
park.  The  distant  edges  of  hill  were  extraordinarily  luminous 
and  clear,  and  Aldous,  looking  into  the  west  with  the  eye  of  one 
to  whom  every  spot  and  line  were  familiar  landmarks,  could  al- 
most fancy  he  saw  beyond  the  invisible  river,  the  hill,  the  "  lovely 
tree  against  tlie  western  sky,"  which  keep  for  ever  the  memory 
ot"  one  with  whose  destiny  it  had  often  seemed  to  him  that  Hallin's 
had  something  in  common.  To  him,  as  to  Thyrsis,  the  same 
early  joy,  the  same  "  happy  quest,"  the  same  "  fugitive  and  gracious 
light"  for  guide  and  beacon,  that  — 

does  not  come  with  houses  or  with  gold, 
With  place,  with  honour  and  a  tiattering  crew ; 

and  to  him,  too,  the  same  tasked  pipe  and  tired  throat,  the  same 
struggle  with  the  "life  of  men  unblest,"  the  same  impatient  tryst 
with  death. 


CHAP.  II  MARCELLA  499 

The  lovely  lines  ran  dirge-like  in  his  head,  as  he  sat,  si;nk  in 
grief,  beside  his  friend.  lliiUin  did  not  speak ;  but  his  eye  took 
note  of  every  cliange  of  light,  of  every  darkening  tone,  as  the  quiet 
English  scene  with  its  villages,  churches,  and  woods,  withdrew 
itself  plane  by  plane  into  the  evening  haze.  His  soul  followed  the 
qniet  deer,  the  homing  birds,  loosening  itself  gently  the  while  from 
pain  and  from  desire,  saying  farewell  to  country,  to  the  poor,  to  the 
work  left  undone,  and  the  hopes  unrealised  —  to  everything  except 
to  love. 

It  had  just  struck  six  when  he  bent  forward  to  tlie  window 
beneath  which  ran  the  wide  front  terrace. 

"That  was  her  step!"  he  said,  while  his  face  lit  np;  "  will  you 
bring  her  here  ?  " 

INIarcella  rang  the  bell  at  the  Court  with  a  fast  beating  heart. 
The  old  butler  who  came  gave  what  her  shrinking  sense  thought  a 
forbidding  answer  to  her  shy  greeting  of  him,  and  led  her  first  into 
the  drawing-room.  A  small  figure  in  deep  black  rose  from  a  dis- 
tant chair  and  came  forward  stiffly.  Marcella  found  herself  shak- 
ing hands  with  Miss  Raebnrn. 

"Will  you  sit  and  rest  a  little  before  you  go  upstairs?"  said  that 
lady  with  careful  politeness,  "  or  shall  I  send  word  at  once  ?  He  is 
hardly  worse  —  but  as  ill  as  he  can  be." 

"I  am  not  the  least  tired,"  said  Marcella,  and  I\Iiss  Raebnrn 
rang. 

"  Tell  his  lordship,  please,  that  Miss  Boyce  is  here." 

The  title  jarred  and  hurt  Marcella's  ear.  But  she  had  scarcely 
time  to  catch  it  before  Aldous  entered,  a  little  bent,  as  it  seemed  to 
her,  from  his  tall  erectness,  and  speaking  with  an  extreme  quiet- 
ness, even  monotony  of  manner. 

"He  is  waiting  for  you  —  will  you  come  at  once?"' 

He  led  her  up  the  central  staircase  and  along  the  familiar  pas- 
sages, walking  silently  a  little  in  front  of  her.  They  passed  the 
long  line  of  Caroline  and  Jacobean  portraits  in  the  upper  gallery, 
till  just  outside  his  own  door  Aldous  paused. 

"He  ought  not  to  talk  long,"  he  said,  hesitating,  "but  you 
will  know  —  of  course  —  better  than  any  of  us." 

"  I  will  watch  him,"  she  said,  almost  inaudibly,  and  he  gently 
opened  the  door  and  let  hei-  pass,  shutting  it  behind  her. 

The  nurse,  who  was  sitting  beside  her  patient,  got  up  as  Mar- 
cella entered,  and  pointed  her  to  a  low  chair  on  his  further  side. 
Susie  Hallin  rose  too,  and  kissed  the  new-comer  hurriedly,  absently, 
without  a  word,  lest  she  should  sob.  Then  she  and  the  nurse  dis- 
appeared through  an  inner  door.  The  evening  light  was  still  freely 
admitted  ;  and   there  were  some   candles.     By  the   help   of  both 


600  MAE  CELL  A  book  iv 

she  could  only  see  him  indistinctly.  But  in  her  own  mind,  as  she 
sat  down,  she  determined  that  he  had  not  even  days  to  live. 

Yet  as  she  bent  over  him  she  saw  a  playful  gleam  on  the  cavern- 
ous face. 

"  You  won't  scold  me  ?  "  said  the  changed  voice  —  "  you  did  warn 
me  —  you  and  Susie  —  but  —  I  was  obstinate.     It  was  best  so !  " 

She  pressed  her  lips  to  his  hand  and  was  answered  by  a  faint 
pressure  from  the  cold  fingers. 

"If  I  could  have  been  there  !  "  she  murmured. 

"  No  —  I  am  thankful  you  were  not.  And  I  must  not  think  of 
it  —  or  of  any  trouble.  Aldous  is  very  bitter  —  but  he  will  take 
comfort  by-and-by  —  he  will  see  it  —  and  them  —  more  justly. 
They  meant  me  no  unkindness.  They  were  full  of  an  idea,  as  I 
was.  When  I  came  back  to  myself  —  first  —  all  was  despair.  I 
was  in  a  blank  horror  of  myself  and  life.  Now  it  has  gone  — 
I  don't  know  how.  It  is  not  of  my  own  will  —  some  hand  has 
lifted  a  weight.     I  seem  to  float  —  without  pain." 

He  closed  his  eyes,  gathering  strength  again  in  the  intei'val,  by  a 
strong  effort  of  will  —  calling  up  in  the  dimming  brain  what  he 
had  to  say.  She  meanwhile  spoke  to  him  in  a  low  voice,  mainly 
to  prevent  his  talking,  telling  him  of  her  father,  of  her  mother's 
strain  of  nursing  —  of  herself  —  she  hardly  knew  what.  How  gro- 
tesque to  be  giving  him  these  little  bits  of  news  about  strangers  — 
to  him,  this  hovering,  consecrated  soul,  on  the  brink  of  the  great 
secret ! 

In  the  intervals,  while  he  was  still  silent,  she  could  not  sometimes 
prevent  the  pulse  of  her  own  life  from  stirring.  Her  eye  wandered 
round  the  room  —  Aldous's  familiar  room.  There,  on  the  writing- 
table  with  its  load  of  letters  and  books,  stood  the  photograph  of 
Hallin ;  another,  her  own,  used  to  stand  beside  it ;  it  was  solitary 
now. 

Otherwise,  all  was  just  as  it  had  been — flowers,  books,  news- 
papers—  the  signs  of  familiar  occupation,  the  hundred  small  de- 
tails of  character  and  personality  which  in  estrangement  take  to 
themselves  such  a  smarting  significance  for  the  sad  and  craving- 
heart.     The  date  —  the  anniversary  —  echoed  in  her  mind. 

Then,  with  a  rush  of  remorseful  pain,  her  thoughts  came  back 
to  the  present  and  to  Hallin.  At  the  same  moment  she  saw  that 
his  eyes  were  open,  and  fixed  upon  her  with  a  certain  anxiety  and 
expectancy.  He  made  a  movement  as  though  to  draw  her  towards 
him ;  and  she  stooped  to  him. 

"  I  feel,"  he  said,  "  as  though  my  strength  were  leaving  me  fast. 
Let  me  ask  you  one  question  —  because  of  my^^love  for  you  —  and 
him.  I  have  fancied  —  of  late  —  things  were  changed.  Can  you 
tell  me  —  will  you?  —  or  is  it  unfair?"  —  the  words  had  all  their 


CHAP.  II  MARCELLA  501 

bright,  natural  intonation  —  "Is  your  heart  —  still  where  it  was? 

—  or,  could  you  ever  —  undo  the  past  —  " 

He  held  her  fast,  grasping  the  hand  she  had  given  him  with 
unconscious  force.  She  had  looked  up  startled,  her  lip  trembling 
like  a  child's.  Then  she  dropped  her  head  against  the  arm  of  her 
chair,  as  though  she  could  not  speak. 

He  moved  restlessly',  and  sighed. 

"  I  should  not,"  he  said  to  himself ;  "  I  should  not  —  it  was 
wrong.     The  dying  are  tyrannous." 

He  even  began  a  word  of  sweet  apology.  But  she  shook  her 
head. 

"  Don't !  "  she  said,  struggling  with  herself  ;  "  don't  say  that ! 
It  would  do  me  good  to  speak  —  to  you  —  " 

An  exquisite  smile  dawned  on  Hallin's  face. 

"  Then  !  "  — he  said  —  "  confess !  " 

A  few  minutes  later  they  were  sitting  together.  She  strongly 
wished  to  go ;  but  he  would  not  yet  allow  it.  His  face  was  full  of 
a  mystical  joy  —  a  living  faith,  which  must  somehow  communicate 
itself  in  one  last  sacramental  effort. 

"  How  strange  that  you  —  and  I  —  and  he  —  should  have  been  so 
mixed  together  in  this  queer  life.     Now  I  seem  to  regret  nothing 

—  I  Jiope  everything.  One  more  little  testimony  let  me  bear  !  — 
the  last.  We  disappear  one  by  one  —  into  the  dark  —  but  each 
may  throw  his  comrades  —  a  token  —  before  he  goes.  You  have 
been  in  much  trouble  of  mind  and  spirit  — I  have  seen  it.  Take 
my  poor  witness.  There  is  one  clue,  one  only  —  goodness  —  the 
surrendered  will.  Everything  is  there  —  all  faith  —  all  religion  — 
all  hope  for  rich  or  poor.  —  Whether  we  feel  our  way  through  con- 
sciously to  the  Will  —  that  asks  our  will  —  matters  little.  Aldous 
and  I  have  differed  much  on  this  —  in  words  —  never  at  heart !  I 
could  use  words,  symbols  he  cannot  —  and  they  have  given  me  peace. 
But  half  my  best  life  I  owe  to  him." 

At  this  he  made  a  long  pause — but,  still,  through  that  weak 
grasp,  refusing  to  let  her  go  —  till  all  was  said.  Day  was  almost 
gone  ;  the  stars  had  come  out  over  the  purple  dusk  of  the  park. 

"  That  Will  —  we  reach  —  through  duty  and  pain,"  he  whispered 
at  last,  so  faintly  she  could  hardly  hear  him,  "  is  the  root,  the 
source.  It  leads  us  in  living  —  it  —  carries  us  in  death.  But  our 
weakness  and  vagueness  —  want  help  —  want  the  human  life  and 
voice  —  to  lean  on  —  to  drink  from.     We  Christians  —  are  orphans 

—  without  Christ !  There  again  —  what  does  it  matter  what  we 
think  —  about  him  —  if  only  we  think  —  of  him.  In  one  such  life 
are  all  mysteries,  and  all  knowledge  —  and  our  fathers  have  chosen 
for  us  — " 


502  MARGE  LL A  book  iv 

The  insistent  voice  sank  lower  and  lower  into  final  silence  — 
though  the  lips  still  moved.  The  e^yelids  too  fell.  ]\liss  Halliu 
and  the  nurse  came  in.  IMarcella  rose  and  stood  for  one  passionate 
instant  looking  down  upon  him.  Then,  with  a  pressure  of  the 
hand  to  the  sister  beside  her,  she  stole  out.  Her  one  prayer  was 
that  she  might  see  and  meet  no  one.  So  soft  was  her  step  that 
even  the  watching  Aldous  did  not  hear  her.  She  lifted  the  heavy- 
latch  of  the  outer  door  without  the  smallest  noise,  and  found  her- 
self alone  in  the  starlight. 

After  Mavcella  left  him,  Hallin  remained  for  some  hours  in  what 
seemed  to  those  about  him  a  feverish  trance.  He  did  not  sleep, 
but  he  showed  no  sign  of  responsive  consciousness.  In  reality  his 
mind  all  through  was  full  of  the  most  vivid  though  incoherent 
images  and  sensations.  But  he  could  no  longer  distinguish  between 
them  and  the  figures  and  movements  of  the  real  people  in  his 
room.  Each  passed  into  and  intermingled  witli  the  other.  In 
some  vague,  eager  way  he  seemed  all  the  time  to  be  waiting  or 
seeking  for  Aldous.  There  was  the  haunting  impression  of  some 
word  to  say  —  some  final  thing  to  do  —  which  would  not  let  him 
rest.  But  something  seemed  always  to  imprison  him,  to  hold  him 
back,  and  the  veil  between  him  and  the  real  Aldous  watching  beside 
him  grew  ever  denser. 

At  night  they  made  no  effort  to  move  him  from  the  couch  and 
the  half-sitting  posture  in  which  he  had  passed  the  day.  Death 
had  come  too  near.  His  sister  and  Aldous  and  the  young  doctor 
who  had  brought  him  from  London  watched  with  him.  The  cur- 
tains were  drawn  back  from  both  the  windows,  and  in  the  clear- 
ness of  the  first  autumnal  frost  a  crescent  moon  hung  above  the 
woods,  the  silvery  lawns,  the  jalain. 

Not  long  after  midnight  Hallin  seemed  to  himself  to  wake,  full 
of  pui-pose  and  of  strength.  He  spoke,  as  he  thought,  to  Aldous, 
asking  to  be  alone  with  him.  But  Aldous  did  not  move;  that  sad 
watching  gaze  of  his  showed  no  change.  Then  Hallin  suffered  a 
sudden  sharp  spasm  of  anguish  and  of  struggle.  Three  words  to 
say  —  only  three  words  ;  but  those  he  7nust  say !  He  tried  again, 
but  Aldous's  dumb  grief  still  sat  motionless.  Then  the  thought 
leapt  in  the  ebbing  sense,  "  Speech  is  gone ;  I  shall  speak  no  more  !  " 

It  brought  with  it  a  stab,  a  quick  revolt.  But  something 
checked  both,  and  in  a  final  offering  of  the  soul,  Hallin  gave  up 
his  last  desire. 

What  Aldous  saw  was  only  that  the  dying  man  oj^ened  his 
hand  as  though  it  asked  for  that  of  his  friend.  He  placed  his 
own  within  those  seeking  fingers,  and  Hallin's  latest  movement  — 
which  death  stopped  half-way  —  was  to  raise  it  to  his  lips. 


CHAr.   Ill  MARCELLA  503 

So  Marcella's  confession  —  made  in  the  abandonment,  the  blind 
passionate  trust,  of  a  supreme  moment  —  bore  no  fruit.  It  went 
with  Hallin  to  the  grave. 


CHAPTER   III 

"  I  THiXK  I  saw  the  letters  arrive,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce  to  her 
daughter.  "  And  Doiina  Margherita  seems  to  be  signalling  to 
us." 

"  Let  me  go  for  them,  mamma." 

"  No,  thank  you,  I  must  go  in." 

And  Mrs.  Boyce  rose  from  her  seat,  and  went  slowly  towards 
the  hotel.  Marcella  watched  her  widow's  cap  and  black  dress  as 
they  passed  along  the  pergola  of  the  hotel  garden,  between  bright 
masses  of  geraniums  and  roses  on  either  side. 

They  had  been  sitting  in  the  famous  garden  of  the  Cappucini 
Hotel  at  Amalfi.  To  Marcella's  left,  far  below  the  high  terrace 
of  the  hotel,  the  green  and  azure  of  the  Salernian  gulf  shone  and 
danced  in  the  sun,  to  her  right  a  wood  of  oak  and  arbutus 
stretched  uj)  into  a  purple  cliff  —  a  W'ood  starred  above  with  gold 
and  scarlet  berries,  and  below  with  cyclamen  and  narcissus.  From 
the  earth  under  the  leafy  oaks  —  for  the  oaks  at  Amalfi  lose  and 
regain  their  foliage  in  winter  and  spring  by  imperceptible  gra- 
dations—  came  a  moist  English  smell.  The  air  was  damp  and 
warm.  A  convent  bell  tolled  from  invisible  heights  above  the 
garden ;  while  the  olives  and  vines  close  at  hand  were  full  of  the 
chattering  voices  of  gardeners  and  children,  and  broken  here  and 
there  by  clouds  of  pink  almond-blossom.  March  had  just  begun, 
and  the  afternoons  were  fast  lengthening.  It  was  little  more  than 
a  fortnight  since  iNIr.  Boyce's  death.  In  the  November  of  the  pre- 
ceding year  ]\Irs.  Boyce  and  INIarcella  had  brought  him  to  Naples 
by  sea,  and  there,  at  a  little  villa  on  Posilippo,  he  had  drawn  sadly 
to  his  end.  It  had  been  a  dreary  time,  from  which  JMarcella  could 
hardly  hope  tliat  her  mother  would  ever  fully  recover.  She  her- 
self had  found  in  the  long  months  of  nursing  —  nursing  of  which, 
with  quiet  tenacity,  she  had  gradually  claimed  and  obtained  her 
full  share  —  a  deep  moral  consolation.  They  had  paid  certain 
debts  to  conscience,  and  they  had  for  ever  enshrined  her  father's 
memory  in  the  silence  of  an  unmeasured  and  loving  pity. 

But  the  wife  ?  Marcella  sorely  recognised  that  to  her  mother 
these  last  days  had  brought  none  of  the  soothing,  reconciling  in- 
fluences they  had  involved  for  herself.  Between  the  husband  and 
wife  there  had  been  dumb  friction  and  misery— r  surely  also  a  pas- 
sionate aifection  !  —  to  t!ie  end.     The  invalid's  dependence  on  her 


50-1  MARCELLA  book  iv 

had  been  abject,  her  devotion  wonderful.  Yet,  iu  her  close  con- 
tact with  them,  the  daughter  had  never  been  able  to  ignore  the 
existence  between  them  of  a  wretched  though  tacit  debate  —  re- 
proach on  his  side,  self-defence  or  spasmodic  effort  on  hers — which 
seemed  to  have  its  origin  deep  in  the  past,  yet  to  be  stimulated 
afresh  by  a  hundred  passing  incidents  of  the  present.  Under  the 
bliglit  of  it,  as  under  the  physical  strain  of  nursing,  Mrs.  Boyce 
had  worn  and  dwindled  to  a  white-haired  shadow;  while  he  had 
both  clung  to  life  and  feared  death  more  than  would  normally 
have  been  the  case.  At  the  end  he  had  died  in  her  arms,  his  head 
on  her  breast ;  she  had  closed  his  eyes  and  performed  every  last 
office  without  a  tear ;  nor  had  Marcella  ever  seen  her  weep  from 
then  till  now.  The  letters  she  had  received,  mostly,  Marcella  be- 
lieved, from  her  own  family,  remained  unopened  in  her  travelling- 
bag.  She  spoke  very  little,  and  was  constantly  I'estless,  nor  could 
Marcella  as  yet  form  any  idea  of  the  future. 

After  the  funeral  at  Naples  Mrs.  Boyce  had  written  immediately 
to  her  husband's  solicitor  for  a  copy  of  his  will  and  a  statement  of 
affairs.  She  had  then  allowed  herself  to  be  carried  off  to  Amalfi, 
and  had  there,  while  entirely  declining  to  admit  that  she  was  ill, 
been  clearly  doing  her  best  to  recover  health  and  nerve  sufficient 
to  come  to  some  decision,  to  grapple  with  some  crisis  which  Mar- 
cella also  felt  to  be  impending — though  as  to  why  it  should  be 
impending,  or  what  the  nature  of  it  might  be,  she  could  only  dread 
and  guess. 

There  was  much  bitter  yearning  in  the  girl's  heart  as  slie  sat, 
breathed  on  by  the  soft  Italian  wind  blowing  from  this  enchanted 
sea.  The  inner  cry  was  that  her  mother  did  not  love  her,  had  never 
loved  her,  and  might  even  now  —  weird,  incredible  thought!  —  be 
planning  to  desert  her.  Ilallin  was  dead  —  who  else  was  there 
that  cared  for  her  or  thought  of  her?  Betty  Macdoiiald  wrote 
often,  wild,  "  schwdrmcrisch  "  letters.  Marcella  looked  for  them 
with  eagerness,  and  answered  them  affectionately.  But  Betty 
must  soon  marry,  and  then  all  that  would  be  at  an  end.  Mean- 
while Marcella  knew  well  it  was  Betty's  news  that  made  Betty's 
adoration  doubly  welcome.  Aldous  Raeburn  —  she  never  did  or 
could  think  of  him  under  his  new  name  —  was  apparently  in  Lon- 
don, much  occupied  in  politics,  and  constantly,  as  it  seemed,  in 
Betty's  society.  What  likelihood  was  there  that  her  life  and  his 
would  ever  touch  again?  She  thought  often  of  her  confession  to 
Hallin,  but  in  great  perplexity  of  feeling.  She  had,  of  course,  said 
no  word  of  secrecy  to  him  at  the  time.  Such  a  demand  in  a  man's 
last  hour  would  have  been  impossible.  She  had  simply  followed  a 
certain  mystical  love  and  obedience  in  telling  him  what  he  asked  to 
know,  and  in  the  strong  spontaneous  impulse  had  thought  of  uoth- 


CHAP.  Ill  MARCELLA  505 

ing  beyond.  Afterwards  her  pride  had  suffered  fresh  martyi'dom. 
Couhl  he,  with  his  loving  instinct,  have  failed  to  give  his  friend 
some  sign?  If  so,  it  had  been  unwelcome,  for  since  the  day  of 
Hallin's  funeral  she  and  Aldous  nad  been  more  complete  strangers 
than  before.  Lady  Winterbourne,  Betty,  Frank  Leven,  had  writ- 
ten since  her  fatiier's  death  ;  but  from  him,  nothing. 

By  the  way,  Frank  Leven  had  succeeded  at  Christmas,  by  old 
Sir  Charles  Leven's  imexpected  death,  to  the  baronetcj'  and  estates. 
How  would  that  affect  his  chances  with  Betty  ?  —  if  indeed  there 
were  any  such  chances  left. 

As  to  her  own  immediate  future,  Marcella  knew  from  many 
indications  that  Mellor  would  be  hers  at  once.  But  in  her  general 
tiredness  of  mind  and  body  she  was  far  more  conscious  of  the  bur- 
den of  her  inheritance  than  of  its  opportunities.  All  that  vivid 
castle-building  gift  which  w^as  specially  hers,  and  would  revive,  was 
at  present  in  abeyance.  She  had  pined  once  for  power  and  free- 
dom, that  she  might  make  a  Kingdom  of  Heaven  of  her  own, 
quickly.  Now  power  and  freedom,  up  to  a  certain  point,  were 
about  to  be  put  into  her  hands ;  and  instead  of  plans  for  acting 
largely  and  boiintifully  on  a  plastic  outer  world,  she  was  saying  to 
herself,  hungrily,  that  unless  she  had  something  close  to  her  to  love 
and  live  for,  she  could  do  uothing.  If  her  mother  would  end  these 
unnatural  doubts,  if  she  would  begin  to  make  friends  with  her  own 
daughter,  and  only  yield  herself  to  be  loved  and  comforted,  why 
then  it  might  be  possible  to  think  of  the  village  and  the  straw- 
plaiting  !  Otherwise  —  the  girl's  attitude  as  she  sat  dreaming  in 
the  sun  showed  her  despondency. 

She  was  roused  by  her  mother's  voice  calling  her  from  the  other 
end  of  the  pergola. 

"Yes,  mamma." 

"Will  you  come  in?     There  are  some  letters." 

"  It  is  the  will,"  thought  IMarcella,  as  Mrs.  Boyce  turned  back  to 
the  hotel,  and  she  followed. 

Mrs.  Boyce  shut  the  door  of  their  sitting-room,  and  then  went  up 
to  her  daughter  with  a  manner  which  suddenly  struck  and  startled 
Marcella.     There  was  natural  agitation  and  trouble  in  it. 

"  There  is  something  in  the  will,  Marcella,  which  will,  I  fear, 
annoy  and  distress  you.  Your  father  inserted  it  without  consult- 
ing me.  I  want  to  know  what  you  think  ought  to  l)e  done.  You 
will  find  that  Lord  Maxwell  and  I  have  been  appointed  joint 
executors." 

Marcella  turned  pale. 

"  Lord  INIaxwell !  "  she  said,  bewildered.  ''  Lord  Maxwell  — 
Aldous!    What  do  you  mean,  mamma?" 

Mrs.  Boyce  put  the  will  into  her  hands,  and,  pointing  the  way 


506  MARCELLA  book  iv 

among  the  technicalities  she  had  been  perusing  while  I\Iai-cella 
was  still  lingering  in  the  garden,  showed  her  the  paragraph  in 
question.  The  words  of  the  will  were  merely  formal :  "I  hereby 
appoint,"  &c.,  and  no  moi'e ;  but  in  a  communication  from  the 
family  solicitor,  Mr.  French,  which  Mrs.  Boyce  silently  handed  to 
her  daughter  after  she  had  read  the  legal  disposition,  the  ladies 
were  informed  that  jNIi'.  Boyce  had,  before  quitting  England,  writ- 
ten a  letter  to  Lord  Maxwell,  duly  sealed  and  addressed,  with 
instructions  that  it  should  be  forwarded  to  its  destination  immedi- 
ately after  the  writer's  burial.  "  Those  instructions,"  said  INIr. 
French,  "  I  have  carried  out.  I  understand  that  Lord  Maxwell 
was  not  consulted  as  to  his  appointment  as  executor  prior  to  the 
drawing  up  of  the  wiU.  But  you  will  no  doubt  hear  from  him  at 
once,  and  as  soon  as  we  know  that  he  consents  to  act,  we  can  pro- 
ceed immediately  to  probate." 

"  Mamma,  how  could  he  ? "  said  Marcella,  in  a  low,  suffocated 
voice,  letting  will  and  letter  fall  upon  her  knee. 

"  Did  he  give  you  no  warning  in  that  talk  you  had  with  him  at 
Mellor  ?  "  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  after  a  minute's  silence. 

"Not  the  least,"  said  JNIarcella,  rising  restlessly  and  beginning 
to  walk  up  and  down.  "  He  spoke  to  me  about  wishing  to  bring 
it  on  again  —  asked  me  to  let  him  write.  I  told  him  it  was  all 
done  with  —  for  ever!  As  to  my  own  feelings,  I  felt  it  was  no 
use  to  speak  of  them ;  but  I  thought  —  I  helieoed  I  had  proved  to 
him  that  Lord  Maxwell  had  absolutely  given  up  all  idea  of  such  a 
thing;  and  that  it  was  already  probable  he  would  marry  some  one 
else.  I  told  him  I  would  rather  disappear  from  every  one  I  knew 
than  consent  to  it  —  he  could  only  humiliate  us  all  by  saying  a 
word.     And  nmv,  after  that !  —  " 

She  stopped  in  her  restless  walk,  pressing  her  hands  miserably 
together. 

"  What  does  he  want  with  us  and  our  affair's  ?  "  she  broke  out.  • 
"  He  wishes,  of  course,  to  have  no  more  to  do  with  me.     And  now 
we  force  him  —  force  him  into  these  intimate  relations.     What  can 
papa  have  said  in  that  letter  to  him?     What  can  he  have  said? 
Oh  !  it  is  unbearable !     Can't  we  write  at  once  ?  " 

She  pressed  her  hands  over  her  eyes  in  a  passion  of  humiliation 
and  disgust.     Mrs.  Boyce  watched  her  closely. 

"  We  must  wait,  anyway,  for  his  letter,"  she  said.  "  It  ought  to 
be  here  by  to-morrow  morning." 

Marcella  sank  on  a  chair  by  an  open  glass  door,  her  eyes  wan- 
dering, through  the  straggling  roses  growing  against  the  wall  of 
the  stone  balcony  outside,  to  the  laughing  purples  and  greens  of 
the  sea. 

"  Of  course,"  she  said  unhappily,  "  it  is  most  probable  he  will 


CHAP.  Ill  MARCELLA  507 

consent.  It  would  not  be  like  him  to  refuse.  But,  mamma,  you 
must  write.  1  must  write  and  beg  him  not  to  do  it.  It  is  quite 
simple.  We  can  manage  everything  for  ourselves.  Oh  !  how  could 
papa?"  she  broke  out  again  in  a  low  wail,  "how  could  he?" 

Mrs.  Boyce's  lips  tightened  sharply.  It  seemed  to  her  a  foolish 
question.  She,  at  least,  had  had  the  experience  of  twenty  years 
out  of  which  to  answer  it.  Death  had  made  no  difference.  She 
saw  her  husband's  character  and  her  own  seared  and  broken  life 
with  the  same  tragical  clearness ;  she  felt  the  same  gnawing  of  an 
affection  not  to  be  plucked  out  while  the  heart  still  beat.  This  act 
of  indelicacy  and  injustice  was  like  many  that  had  gone  before  it; 
and  there  was  in  it  the  same  evasion  and  concealment  towards 
herself.  No  matter.  She  had  made  her  account  with  it  all  twenty 
years  before.  What  astonished  her  was,  that  the  force  of  her 
strong  coercing  will  had  been  able  to  keep  him  for  so  long  within 
the  limits  of  the  smaller  and  meaner  immoralities  of  this  world. 

"Have  you  read  the  rest  of  the  will?"  she  asked,  after  a  long 
pause. 

Marcella  lifted  it  again,  and  began  listlessly  to  go  through  it. 

"  Mamma ! "  she  said  presently,  looking  up,  the  colour  flushing 
back  into  her  face,  "  I  find  no  mention  of  you  in  it  throughout. 
There  seems  to  be  no  provision  for  you." 

"  There  is  none,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  quietly.  '"  There  was  no  need. 
I  have  my  own  income.  We  lived  upou  it  for  years  before  your 
father  succeeded  to  Mellor.  It  is  therefore  amply  sufficient  for 
me  now." 

"  You  cannot  imagine,"  cried  ]\Iarcella,  trembling  in  every  liml), 
"that  I  am  going  to  take  the  whole  of  my  father's  estate,  and 
leave  nothing  —  nothing  for  his  wife.  It  would  be  impossible  — 
unseemly.  It  would  be  to  do  me  an  injustice,  mamma,  as  well  as 
yourself,"  she  added  proudly. 

"  No,  I  think  not,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  with  her  usual  cold  absence 
of  emotion.  "  You  do  not  yet  understand  the  situation.  Your 
father's  misfortunes  nearly  ruined  the  estate  for  a  time.  Your 
grandfather  went  through  great  trouble,  and  raised  large  sums 
to  —  "  she  paused  for  the  right  phrase  —  "to  free  us  from  the  con- 
sequences of  your  father's  actions.  I  benefited,  of  course,  as  much 
as  he  did.  Those  sums  crippled  all  your  grandfather's  old  age.  He 
was  a  man  to  whom  I  was  attached —  whom  I  respected.  Mellor, 
I  believe,  had  never  been  embarrassed  before.  Well,  your  uncle 
did  a  little  towards  recovery  —  but  on  the  whole  he  was  a  fool. 
Your  father  has  done  much  more,  and  you,  no  doubt,  will  complete 
it.  As  for  me,  I  have  no  claim  to  anything  m-ore  from  Mellor. 
The  place  itself  is  "  —  again  she  stopped  for  a  word  of  which  the 
energy,  when  it  came,  seemed  to  escape  her — "hateful  to  me.     I 


508  MARCELLA  book  iv 

shall  feel  freer  if  I  have  no  tie  to  it.  And  at  last  I  persuaded  your 
father  to  let  me  have  my  way." 

Marcella  rose  from  her  seat  impetuously,  walked  quickly  across 
the  room,  and  threw  herself  on  her  knees  beside  her  mother. 

"  Mamma,  are  you  still  determined  —  now  that  we  two  are  alone 
in  the  world  —  to  act  towards  me,  to  treat  me  as  though  I  were 
not  your  daughter  —  not  your  child  at  all,  but  a  stranger  ?  " 

It  was  a  cry  of  anguish.  A  sudden  slight  tremor  swept  over 
Mrs.  Boyce's  thin  and  withered  face.  She  braced  herself  to  the 
inevitable. 

"  Don't  let  lis  make  a  tragedy  of  it,  my  dear,"  she  said,  with  a 
light  touch  on  Marcella's  hands.  "  Let  us  discuss  it  reasonably. 
Won't  you  sit  down?  1  am  not  proposing  anything  very  dreadful. 
But,  like  you,  I  have  some  interests  of  my  own,  and  I  should  be 
glad  to  follow  them  —  now — a  little.  I  wish  to  spend  some  of 
the  year  in  London ;  to  make  that,  perhaps,  my  headquarters,  so 
as  to  see  something  of  some  old  friends  whom  I  have  had  no  inter- 
course with  for  years  —  perhaps  also  of  my  relations."  She  spoke 
of  them  with  a  particular  dryness.  "  And  I  should  be  glad  — 
after  this  long  time  —  to  be  somewhat  taken  out  of  one's  self,  to 
read,  to  hear  what  is  going  on,  to  feed  one's  mind  a  little." 

Marcella,  looking  at  her,  saw  a  kind  of  feverish  light,  a  sparkling 
intensity  in  the  ]5ale  blue  eyes,  that  filled  her  with  amazement. 
What,  after  all,  did  she  know  of  this  strange  individuality  from 
which  her  own  being  had  taken  its  rise?  The  same  flesh  and  blood 
—  what  an  irony  of  nature  ! 

"  Of  course,"  continued  Mrs.  Boyce,  "  I  should  go  to  you,  and 
you  would  come  to  me.  It  would  only  be  for  part  of  the  year. 
Probably  we  should  get  more  from  each  other's  lives  so.  As  you 
know,  I  long  to  see  things  as  they  are,  not  conventionally.  AnyA\'ay, 
whether  I  were  there  or  no,  you  would  probably  want  some  com- 
panion to  help  you  in  your  work  and  plans.  I  am  not  fit  for  them. 
And  it  would  be  easy  to  find  some  one  who  could  act  as  chaperon 
in  my  absence." 

The  hot  tears  sprang  to  Marcella's  eyes.  "  Why  did  you  send 
me  away  from  you,  mamma,  all  my  childhood,"  she  cried.  "  It 
was  wrong  —  cruel.  I  have  no  brother  or  sister  And  you  put 
me  out  of  your  life  when  I  had  no  choice,  when  I  was  too  young 
to  understand. " 

Mrs.  Boyce  winced,  but  made  no  reply.  She  sat  with  her  deli- 
cate hand  across  her  brow.  She  was  the  white  shadow  of  her 
former  self ;  but  her  fragility  had  always  seemed  to  Marcella  more 
indomitable  than  anybody  else's  strength. 

Sobs  begau  to  rise  in  Marcella's  throat. 

"  And  now,"  she  said,  in  half-coherent  despair,  "  do  you  know 


ciiAi'.   Ill  MARCELLA  609 

what  you  are  doing?  You  are  cutting  yourself  off  from  me  — 
refusing  to  have  any  real  bond  to  me  just  when  T  want  it  most. 
I  suppose  you  think  that  I  shall  be  satisfied  with  the  property  and 
the  power,  and  the  chance  of  doing  what  I  like.  But "  —  she 
tried  her  best  to  gulp  back  her  pain,  her  outraged  feeling,  to  speak 
quietly  —  "I  am  not  like  that  really  any  more.  I  can  take  it  all 
up,  with  courage  and  heart,  if  you  will  stay  with  me,  and  let  me  — 
let  me  —  love  you  and  care  for  you.  But,  by  myself,  I  feel  as  if  I 
could  not  face  it !  I  am  not  likely  to  be  happy  —  for  a  long  time 
—  except  in  doing  what  work  I  can.  It  is  very  improbable  that  I 
shall  marry.  I  dare  say  yon  don't  believe  me,  but  it  is  true.  We 
are  both  sad  and  lonely.  We  have  no  one  but  each  other.  And 
then  you  talk  in  this  ghastly  way  of  separating  from  me  —  casting 
me  off." 

Her  voice  trembled  and  broke,  she  looked  at  her  mother  with 
a  frowning  passion. 

Mrs.  Boyce  still  sat  silent,  studying  her  daughter  with  a  strange, 
brooding  eye.  Under  her  unnatural  composure  there  was  in  reality 
a  half-mad  impatience,  the  result  of  physical  and  moral  reaction. 
This  beauty,  this  youth,  talk  of  sadness,  of  finality  !  What  folly ! 
Still,  she  was  stirred,  undermined  in  spite  of  herself. 

"  There  !  "  she  said,  with  a  restless  gesture,  "  let  us,  please,  talk 
of  it  no  more.  I  will  come  back  with  you  —  I  will  do  my  best. 
We  will  let  the  matter  of  my  future  settlement  alone  for  some 
months,  at  any  rate,  if  that  will  satisfy  you  or  be  any  help  to  you." 

She  made  a  movement  as  thoiigh  to  rise  from  her  low  chair. 
But  the  great  waters  swelled  in  Marcella  —  swelled  and  broke. 
She  fell  on  her  knees  again  by  her  mother,  and  before  Mrs.  Boyce 
could  stop  her  she  had  thrown  her  young  arms  close  round  the 
thin,  shrunken  form. 

"  Mother !  "  she  said.  "Mother,  be  good  to  me  —  love  me  - — -you 
are  all  I  have  !  " 

And  she  kissed  the  pale  brow  and  cheek  with  a  hungiy.  almost 
a  violent  tenderness  that  would  not  be  gainsaid,  murmuring  wild 
incoherent  things. 

Mrs.  Boyce  first  tried  to  put  her  away,  then  submitted,  being 
physically  unable  to  resist,  and  at  last  escaped  from  her  with  a 
sudden  sob  that  went  to  the  girl's  heart.  She  rose,  went  to  the 
window,  struggled  hard  for  composure,  and  finally  left  the  room. 

But  that  evening,  for  the  first  time,  she  let  Marcella  put  her  on 
the  sofa,  tend  her,  and  read  to  her.  More  wonderful  still,  she 
went  to  sleep  while  Marcella  was  reading.  In  the  lamplight  her 
face  looked  piteously  old  and  worn.  The  girl  sat  for  long  with 
her  hands  clasped  round  her  knees,  gazing  down  upon  it,  in  a 
trance  of  pain  and  longing. 


510  MARCELLA  book  it 

Marcella  was  awake  early  next  morning,  listening  to  tlie  full 
vdice  of  the  sea  as  it  broke  three  hundred  feet  below,  against  the 
beach  and  rocky  walls  of  the  little  town.  She  was  lying  in  a  tiny 
white  room,  one  of  the  cells  of  the  old  monastery,  and  the  sun  as 
it  rose  above  the  Salernian  mountains  —  the  mountains  that  hold 
Pajstum  in  their  blue  and  purple  shadows  —  danced  in  gold  on  the 
white  wall.  The  bell  of  the  cathedral  far  below  tolled  the  hour. 
She  supposed  it  must  be  si:x  o'clock.  Two  hours  more  or  so,  and 
Lord  Maxwell's  letter  might  be  looked  for. 

She  lay  and  thought  of  it  —  longed  for  it,  and  for  the  time  of 
answering  it,  with  the  same  soreness  that  had  marked  all  the 
dreams  of  a  restless  night.  If  she  could  only  see  her  father's  let- 
ter !  It  was  inconceivable  that  he  should  have  mentioned  her 
name  in  his  plea.  He  might  have  appealed  to  the  old  friendship 
between  the  families.  That  was  possible,  and  would  have,  at  any 
rate,  an  appearance  of  decency.  But  who  could  answer  for  it  —  or 
for  him  ?  She  clasped  her  hands  rigidly  behind  her  head,  her 
brows  frowning,  bending  her  mind  with  an  intensity  of  will  to  the 
best  means  of  assuring  Aldous  Raeburn  that  she  and  her  motiier 
would  not  encroach  upon  him.  She  had  a  perpetual  morbid  vision 
of  herself  as  the  pursuer,  attacking  him  now  thi'ough  his  friend, 
now  through  her  father.  Oh  !  when  would  that  letter  come,  and 
let  her  write  her  own ! 

She  tried  to  read,  but  in  reality  listened  for  eveiy  sound  of 
awakening  life  in  the  hotel.  When  at  last  her  mother's  maid 
came  in  to  call  her,  she  sprang  up  with  a  start. 

"  Deacon,  are  the  letters  come?  " 

"  There  are  two  for  your  mother,  miss ;  none  for  yon." 

Marcella  threw  on  her  dressing-gown,  watched  her  opportimity, 
and  slipped  in  to  her  mother,  who  occupied  a  similar  cell  next 
door. 

Mrs.  Boyce  was  sitting  up  in  bed,  with  a  letter  before  her,  her 
pale  blue  eyes  fixed  absently  on  the  far  stretch  of  sea. 

She  looked  round  with  a  start  as  Marcella  entered.  "  The  letter 
is  to  me,  of  course,"  she  said. 

Marcella  read  it  breathlessly. 

"  Dear  Mrs.  Boyce,  —  I  have  this  morning  received  from  your 
solicitor,  Mr.  French,  a  letter  written  by  Mr.  Boyce  to  myself  in 
November  of  last  year.  In  it  he  asks  me  to  undertake  the  office 
of  executor,  to  which,  I  hear  from  Mr.  French,  he  has  named  me 
in  his  will.  Mr.  French  also  enquires  whether  I  shall  be  willing 
to  act,  and  asks  me  to  communicate  with  you. 

"May  I,  then,  venture  to  intrude  upon  you  with  these  few  words? 
]\Ir.  Boyce  refers  in  his  touching  letter  to  the  old  friendship  be- 
tween our  families,  and  to  the  fact  that  similar  ofRces  have  often 


CHAP.  Ill  MARCELLA  511 

been  performed  l\v  his  relations  for  mine,  or  vice  versa.  But  no 
reminder  of  the  kind  was  in  the  least  needed.  If  I  can  be  of  any 
service  to  yonrself  and  to  JMiss  Boyce,  neither  your  poor  husband 
nor  you  could  do  me  any  greater  kindness  than  to  command  me. 

"  I  feel  naturally  some  diffidence  in  the  matter.  I  gather  from 
INIr.  French  that  JMiss  Boyce  is  her  father's  heiress,  and  conies  at 
once  into  the  possession  of  Mellor.  She  may  not,  of  course,  wish 
me  to  act,  in  which  case  I  should  withdraw  immediately ;  but  I 
sincerely  trust  that  she  will  not  forbid  me  the  very  small  service 
I  could  so  easily  and  gladly  render. 

"  I  cannot  close  my  letter  without  venturing  to  express  the  deep 
sympathy  I  have  felt  for  you  and  yours  during  the  past  six  months. 
I  have  been  far  from  forgetful  of  all  that  you  have  been  going 
through,  though  I  may  have  seemed  so.  I  trust  that  you  and  your 
daughter  will  not  hurry  home  for  any  business  cause,  if  it  is  still 
best  for  your  health  to  stay  in  Italy.  With  your  instructions  Mr. 
French  and  I  could  arrange  everything. 
"  Believe  me, 

"  Yours  most  sincerely, 

"  Maxwell." 

"  You  will  find  it  difficult,  my  dear,  to  viTite  a  snub  in  answer  to 
that  letter,"  said  Mrs.  Boyce,  drily,  as  Marcella  laid  it  down. 

Marcella's  face  was,  indeed,  crimson  with  perplexity  and  feeling. 

"  Well,  we  can  think  it  over,"  she  said  as  she  went  away. 

]\Irs.  Boyce  pondered  the  matter  a  good  deal  when  she  was  left 
alone.  The  signs  of  reaction  and  change  in  JNIarcella  were  plain 
enough.  What  they  precisely  meant,  and  how  much,  was  another 
matter.  As  to  him,  Marcella's  idea  of  another  attachment  might 
be  true,  or  might  be  merely  the  creation  of  her  own  irritable  pride. 
Anyway,  he  was  in  the  mood  to  write  a  charming  letter.  Mrs. 
Boyce's  blanched  lip  had  all  its  natural  irony  as  she  thought  it 
over.  To  her  mind  Aldous  Raeburn's  manners  had  always  been  a 
trifle  too  good,  whether  for  his  own  interests  or  for  this  wicked 
world.  And  if  he  had  any  idea  now  of  trying  again,  let  him,  for 
Heaven's  sake,  not  be  too  yielding  or  too  eager !  "  It  was  always 
the  way,"  thought  JNIi'S.  Boyce,  remembering  a  child  in  white  frock 
and  baby  shoes  —  "  if  you  wished  to  make  her  want  anything,  you 
had  to  take  it  away  from  her." 

Meanwhile  the  mere  thought  that  matters  might  even  yet  so 
settle  themselves  drew  from  the  mother  a  long  breath  of  relief. 
She  had  spent  an  all  but  sleepless  night,  tormented  by  Marcella's 
claim  upon  her.  After  twenty  years  ot  self-suppr(;ssion  this  woman 
of  forty-five,  naturally  able,  original,  and  independent,  had  seen  a 
glimpse  of  liberty.     In  her  first  youth  she  had  been  betrayed  as  a 


512  MARCELLA  book  iv 

wife,  degraded  as  a  member  of  society.  A  passion  she  could  not 
kill,  combined  with  some  stoical  sense  of  inalienable  obligation, 
had  combined  to  make  her  both  the  slave  and  guardian  of  her 
husband  up  to  middle  life  ;  and  her  family  and  personal  pride,  so 
strong  in  her  as  a  girl,  had  found  its  only  outlet  in  this  singular 
estrangement  she  had  achieved  between  herself  and  every  other 
living  being,  including  her  own  daughter.  Now  her  husband  was 
dead,  and  all  sorts  of  crushed  powers  and  desires,  mostly  of  the 
intellectual  sort,  had  been  strangely  reviving  within  her.  Just 
emerged,  as  she  was,  from  the  long  gloom  of  nursing,  she  already 
wished  to  throw  it  all  behind  her  —  to  travel,  to  read,  to  make 
acquaintances  —  she  who  had  lived  as  a  recluse  for  twenty  years! 
There  was  in  it  a  last  clutch  at  youth,  at  life.  And  she  had  no 
desire  to  enter  upon  this  new  existence — in  comradeshijD  with 
'Marcella.  They  were  independent  and  very  different  human 
beings.  That  they  were  mother  and  daughter  was  a  mere  physiv 
cal  accident. 

Moreover,  though  she  was  amply  conscious  of  the  fine  develop- 
ment in  Marcella  dm-ing  the  past  two  years,  it  is  probable  that  she 
felt  her  daughter  even  less  congenial  to  her  now  than  of  old.  For 
the  rich,  emotional  nature  had,  as  we  have  seen,  "suffered  convic- 
tion," had  turned  in  the  broad  sense  to  "  religion,"  was  more  and 
more  sensitive,  especially  since  Hallin's  death,  to  the  spiritual 
things  and  symbols  in  the  world.  At  Naples  she  had  haunted 
churches ;  had  read,  as  her  mother  knew,  many  religious  books. 

Now  Mrs.  Boyce  in  these  matters  had  a  curious  history.  She 
had  begun  life  as  an  ardent  Christian,  under  evangelical  influences. 
Her  husband,  on  the  other  hand,  at  the  time  she  married  him  was 
a  man  of  purely  sceptical  opinions,  a  superficial  disciple  of  Mill 
and  Comte,  and  fond  of  an  easy  profanity  which  seemed  to  place 
him  indisputably  with  the  superior  persons  of  this  world.  To  the 
amazement  and  scandal  of  her  friends,  Evelyn  Merritt  had  not 
been  three  months  his  wife  before  she  had  adopted  his  opinions  en 
bloc,  and  was  carrying  them  out  to  their  logical  ends  with  a  sin- 
cerity and  devotion  quite  unknown  to  her  teacher.  Thenceforward 
her  conception  of  things  —  of  which,  however,  she  seldom  spoke  — 
had  been  actively ^and  even  vehemently  rationalist;  and  it  had 
been  one  of  the  chief  soi'enesses  and  shames  of  her  life  at  JNIellor 
that,  in  order  to  suit  his  position  as  country  squire,  Richard  Boyce 
had  sunk  to  what,  in  her  eyes,  were  a  hundred  mean  compliances 
with  things  orthodox  and  established. 

Then,  in  his  last  illness,  he  had  finally  broken  aw^ay  from  her, 
and  his  own  past.  "  Evelyn,  I  should  like  to  see  a  clergyman,"  he 
had  said  to  her  in  his  piteous  voice,  "  and  I  shall  ask  him  to  give 
me  the   Sacrament."     She  had  made  every  arrangement  accord- 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  613 

ingly ;  but  her  bitter  soul  could  see  nothing  in  tlie  step  but  fear 
and  hypocrisjr ;  and  he  knew  it.  And  as  he  lay  talking  alone  with 
the  man  whom  they  had  sunmioned,  two  or  three  niglits  before 
the  end,  she,  sitting  in  the  next  room,  liad  been  conscious  of  a 
deep  and  smarting  jealousy.  Had  not  the  hard  devotion  of  twenty 
years  made  him  at  least  her  own  ?  And  here  was  this  black-coated 
reciter  of  incredible  things  stepping  into  her  place.  Only  in  death 
she  recovered  him  wholly.  No  priest  interfered  while  he  drew  his 
last  breatli  upon  her  bosom. 

And  now  Marcella  !  Yet  the  girl's  voice  and  plea  tugged  at  her 
withered  heart.  She  felt  a  dread  of  unknown  softnesses  — of  being- 
invaded  and  weakened  by  things  in  her  akin  to  her  daughter,  and 
so  captured  afresh.  Her  mind  fell  upon  the  bare  idea  of  a  revival 
of  the  iMaxwell  engagement,  and  caressed  it. 

Meanwhile  IMarcella  stood  dressing  by  the  open  window  in  the 
sunlight,  which  filled  the  room  with  wavy  reflections  caught  from 
tire  sea.  Fishing-boats  were  putting  off  from  the  beach,  three 
hundred  feet  below  her  ;  she  could  hear  the  grating  of  the  keels, 
the  songs  of  the  boatmen.  On  the  little  breakwater  to  the  right 
an  artist's  white  umbrella  shone  in  the  sun  ;  and  a  half-naked  boy, 
poised  on  the  bows  of  a  boat  moored  beside  the  painter,  stood  bent  in 
the  eager  attitude  of  one  about  to  drop  the  bait  into  the  blue  wave 
below.  His  brown  back  burnt  against  the  water.  Cliff,  houses,  sea, 
glowed  in  warmth  and  light;  the  air  was  full  of  roses  and  orange- 
blossom  ;  and  to  an  P^ngiish  sense  had  already  the  magic  of  summer. 

And  Marcella's  hands,  as  she  coiled  and  plaited  her  black  hair, 
moved  with  a  new  lightness ;  for  the  first  time  since  her  father's 
death  her  look  had  its  normal  fire,  crossed  every  now  and  then  by 
something  that  made  her  all  softness  and  all  woman.  No  !  as  her 
mother  said,  one  could  not  snub  that  letter  or  its  writer.  But 
how  to  answer  it !  In  imagination  she  had  already  penned  twenty 
different  replies.  How  not  to  be  grasping  or  effusive,  and  yet  to 
show  that  you  could  feel  and  repay  kindness  —  there  was  the 
problem ! 

Meanwhile,  from  that  letter,  or  rather  in  subtle  connection  with 
it,  her  thoughts  at  last  went  wandering  off  with  a  natural  zest  to 
her  new  realm  of  Mellor,  and  to  all  that  she  would  and  could  do 
for  the  dwellers  therein. 


CHAPTER   IV 

It  was  a  bleak  east-wind  day  towards  the  end  of  March.    Aldous 
was  at  work  in  the  library  at  the  Court,  writing  at  his  grandfather's 
table,  where  in  general  he  got  through  his  estate  and  county  affairs, 
2l 


514  MARCELLA  book  iv 

keeping  his  old  sitting-room  upstairs  for  the  pursuits  that  were 
more  particularly  his  own. 

All  the  morning  he  had  been  occupied  with  a  tedious  piece  of 
local  business,  wading  through  endless  documents  concerning  a 
dispute  between  the  head-master  of  a  neighbouring  grammar- 
school  and  his  governing  body,  of  which  Aldous  was  one.  The 
affair  was  ditBcult,  personal,  odious.  To  have  wasted  nearly  three 
hours  upon  it  was,  to  a  man  of  Aldous's  type,  to  have  lost  a  day. 
Besides  he  had  not  his  grandfather's  knack  in  such  things,  and 
was  abundantly  conscious  of  it. 

However,  there  it  was,  a  duty  which  none  but  he  apparentlj^ 
could  or  would  do,  and  he  had  been  wi'estling  with  it.  With  more 
philosophy  than  usual,  too,  since  every  tick  of  the  clock  behind 
him  bore  him  nearer  to  an  appointment  which,  whatever  it  migkt 
be,  would  not  be  tedious. 

At  last  he  got  up  and  went  to  the  window  to  look  at  the  weather. 
A  cutting  wind,  clearly,  but  no  rain.  Then  he  walked  into  the 
drawing-room,  calling  for  his  aunt.  No  one  was  to  be  seen,  either 
there  or  in  the  conservatory,  and  he  came  back  to  the  library  and 
rang. 

"  Koberts,  has  Miss  Raeburn  gone  out  ?  " 

"  Yes,  my  lord,"  said  the  old  butler  addressed.  "  She  and  Miss 
Macdonald  have  gone  out  driving,  and  I  was  to  tell  your  lordship 
that  ]Miss  Raeburn  would  drop  Miss  Macdonald  at  Mellor  on  her 
way  home." 

"  Is  Sir  Frank  anywhere  about  ?  " 

"  He  was  in  ihe  smoking-room  a  little  while  ago,  my  lord." 

"  Will  you  please  try  and  find  him?" 

"  Yes,  my  lord." 

Aldous's  mouth  twitched  with  impatience  as  the  old  servant 
shut  the  door. 

"  How  many  times  did  Roberts  manage  to  be-lord  me  in  a 
minute  ?  "  ha  asked  himself ;  "  yet  if  I  were  to  remonstrate,  I  sup 
pose  I  should  only  make  him  unhappy." 

And  walking  again  to  the  window,  he  thrust  his  hands  into  his 
pockets  and  stood  looking  out  with  a  far  from  cheerful  counte- 
nance. 

One  of  the  things  that  most  tormented  him  indeed  in  this 
recent  existence  was  a  perpetual  pricking  sense  of  the  contrast 
between  this  small  world  of  his  ancestral  possessions  and  tradi- 
tions, with  all  its  ceremonial  and  feudal  usage,  and  the  great  rush- 
ing world  outside  it  of  action  and  of  thought.  Do  what  he  would, 
he  could  not  un-king  himself  within  the  limits  of  the  IMaxwell 
estate.  To  the  people  living  upon  it  he  was  the  man  of  most 
importance  within  their  ken,  was  inevitably  their  potentate  and 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  515 

earthly  providence.  He  confessed  that  there  was  a  real  need  of 
him,  if  he  did  liis  duty.  But  on  this  need  the  class-practice  of 
generations  had  built  up  a  deference,  a  sharpness  of  class-distiuc- 
tion,  which  any  modern  must  find  more  and  more  irksome  in  pro- 
portion to  his  modernness.  What  was  in  Aldous's  mind  as  he 
stood  with  drawn  brows  looking  out  over  the  view  which  showed 
him  most  of  his  domain,  was  a  sort  of  hot  impatience  of  being 
made  day  by  day,  in  a  hundred  foolish  ways,  to  phiy  at  greatness. 

Yet,  as  we  know,  he  was  no  democrat  by  conviction,  had  no 
comforting  faith  in  what  seemed  to  him  the  rule  of  a  multitu- 
dinous ignorance.  Still  every  sane  man  of  to-day  knows,  at  any 
rate,  that  the  world  has  taken  the  road  of  democracy,  and  that 
the  key  to  the  future,  for  good  or  ill,  lies  not  in  the  revolts  and 
speculations  of  the  cultivated  few,  but  in  the  men  and  movements 
that  can  seize  the  many  Aldous's  temper  was  despondently 
critical  towards  the  majority  of  these,  perhaps ;  he  had,  constitu- 
tionally, little  of  that  poet's  sympathy  with  the  crowd,  as  such, 
which  had  given  Hallin  his  power.  But,  at  any  rate,  they  filled 
the  human  stage  —  these  men  and  movements  —  and  his  mind  as 
a  beholder.  Beside  the  great  world-spectacle  perpetually  in  his 
eye  and  thought,  the  small  old-world  pomps  and  feudalisms  of 
his  own  existence  had  a  way  of  looking  ridiculous  to  him.  He 
constantly  felt  himself  absurd.  It  was  ludicrously  clear  to  hiin, 
for  instance,  that  in  this  kingdom  he  had  inherited  it  would  be 
thought  a  huge  condescension  on  his  part  if  he  were  to  ask  the 
secretaiy  of  a  trades  union  to  dine  with  him  at  the  Court. 
Whereas,  in  his  own  honest  oiiinion,  the  secretary  had  a  far  more 
important  and  interesting  post  in  the  universe  than  he. 

So  that,  in  spite  of  a  strong  love  of  family,  rigidly  kept  to  him- 
self, he  had  very  few  of  the  illusions  which  make  rank  and  wealth 
delightful.  On  the  other  hand,  he  had  a  tyrannous  sense  of  obli- 
gation, which  kept  him  tied  to  his  place  and  his  work  —  to  such 
work  as  he  had  been  spending  the  morning  on.  This  sense  of 
obligation  had  for  the  present  withdrawn  him  from  any  very 
active  share  in  politics.  He  had  come  to  the  conclusion  eai'ly  in 
the  year,  just  about  the  time  when,  owing  to  some  rearrangements 
in  the  personnel  of  the  Government,  the  Premier  had  made  him 
some  extremely  flattering  overtures,  that  he  must  for  the  present 
devote  himself  to  the  Court.  There  were  extensive  changes  and 
reforms  going  on  in  diffei'ent  parts  of  the  estate :  some  of  the 
schools  which  he  owned  and  mainly  supported  were  being  rebuilt 
and  enlarged;  and  he  had  a  somewhat  original  scheme  for  the 
extension  of  adult  education  throughout  the  property  very  much 
on  his  mind  —  a  scheme  which  must  be  organised  and  carried 
through  by  himself  apparently,  if  it  was  to  thrive  at  all. 


516  MARCELLA  book  iv 

Much  of  this  business  was  very  dreary  to  him,  some  of  it  alto- 
gether distasteful.  Since  the  day  of  his  parting  with  Marcella 
Boyce  his  only  real  pleasures  had  lain  in  politics  or  books.  Poli- 
tics, just  as  they  were  growing  absoi-bing  to  him,  must,  for  a  while 
at  any  rate,  be  put  aside ;  and  even  books  had  not  fared  as  well  as 
they  might  have  been  expected  to  do  in  the  countiy  quiet.  Day 
after  day  he  walked  or  rode  about  the  muddy  lanes  of  the  estate, 
doing  the  work  that  seemed  to  him  to  be  his,  as  best  he  could,  yet 
never  very  certain  of  its  value ;  rather,  spending  his  thoughts  more 
and  more,  with  regard  to  his  own  place  and  functiou  in  the  world, 
on  a  sort  of  mental  apologetic  which  was  far  from  stimulating; 
sorely  conscious  the  while  of  the  unmatched  charm  and  effective- 
ness with  which  his  grandfather  had  gone  about  the  same  busi- 
ness ;  and  as  lonely  at  heart  as  a  man  can  well  be  —  the  wound  of 
love  unhealed,  the  wound  of  friendship  still  deep  and  unconsoled. 
To  bring  social  peace  and  progress,  as  he  understood  them,  to  this 
bit  of  Midland  England  a  man  of  first-rate  capacities  was  perhaps 
sacrificing  what  ambition  would  have  called  his  opportunities. 
Yet  neither  was  he  a  hero  to  himself  nor  to  the  Buckinghamshire 
farmers  and  yokels  who  depended  on  him.  They  had  liked  the 
grandfather  better,  and  had  become  stolidly  accustomed  to  the 
grandson's  virtues. 

The  only  gleam  in  the  grey  of  his  life  since  he  had  determined 
about  Christmas-time  to  settle  down  at  the  Court  had  come  from 
Mr.  French's  letter.  That  letter,  together  with  Mr.  Boyce's  post- 
humous note,  which  contained  nothing,  indeed,  but  a  skilful 
appeal  to  neighbourliness  and  old  family  friendship,  written  in 
the  best  style  of  the  ex-Balkan  Commissioner,  had  naturally  as- 
tonished him  greatly.  He  saw  at  once  what  she  would  perceive 
in  it,  and  turned  impatiently  from  speculation  as  to  what  Mr. 
Boyce  might  actually  have  meant,  to  the  infinitely  more  important 
matter,  how  she  would  take  her  father's  act.  Never  had  he  writ- 
ten anything  with  greater  anxiety  than  he  devoted  to  his  letter  to 
Mrs.  Boyce.  There  was  in  him  now  a  craving  he  could  not  stay, 
to  be  brought  near  to  her  again,  to  know  how  her  life  was  going. 
It  had  first  raised  its  head  in  him  since  he  knew  that  her  existence 
and  Wharton's  were  finally  parted,  and  had  but  gathered  strength 
from  the  self-critical  loneliness  and  tedium  of  these  later  months. 

Mrs.  Boyce's  reply  couched  in  terms  at  once  stately  and  grateful, 
which  accepted  his  offer  of  service  on  her  own  and  her  daughter's 
behalf,  had  given  him  extraordinary  pleasure.  He  turned  it  over 
again  and  again,  wondering  what  part  or  lot  Marcella  might  have 
luid  in  it,  attributing  to  her  this  cordiality  or  that  reticence;  pict- 
uring the  two  women  together  in  their  black  dresses  —  the  hotel, 
the  pergola,  the  cliff  —  all  of  which  he  himself  knew  well.    Finally, 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  617 

he  went  up  to  town,  saw  INIr.  French,  and  acquainted  himself  with 
the  position  and  prospects  of  tlie  ]\IelIor  estate,  feeling  himself  a 
sort  of  intruder,  yet  curiously  happy  in  the  business.  It  was 
wonderful  what  that  poor  sickly  fellow  had  been  able  to  do  in  the 
last  two  years ;  yet  his  thoughts  fell  rather  into  amused  surmise  as 
to  what  .5/ie. would  find  it  in  her  restless  mind  to  do  in  the  7iexl  two 
years. 

Nevertheless,  all  the  time,  the  resolution  of  which  he  had  spoken 
to  Hallin  seemed  to  himself  unshaken.  He  recognised  and  adored 
the  womanly  growth  and  deepening  which  had  taken  place  in  her; 
he  saw  that  she  wished  to  show  him  kindness.  But  he  thought  he 
could  trust  himself  now  and  henceforward  not  to  force  upon  her  a 
renewed  suit  for  which  there  was  in  his  eyes  no  real  or  abiding 
promise  of  happiness. 

Marcella  and  her  mother  had  now  been  at  home  some  three  or 
four  days,  and  he  was  just  about  to  walk  over  to  Mellor  for  his 
first  interview  with  them.  A  great  deal  of  the  merely  formal  busi- 
ness conse(pient  on  Mr.  Boyce's  death  had  been  already  arranged 
by  himseK  and  Mr.  French.  Yet  he  had  to  consult  Marcella  as  to 
certain  investments,  and  in  a  pleasant  though  quite  formal  little 
note  he  had  that  morning  received  from  her  she  had  spoken  of 
asking  his  advice  as  to  some  new  plans  for  the  estate.  It  was  the 
first  letter  she  herself  had  as  yet  written  to  him ;  hitherto  all  his 
correspondence  had  been  carried  on  with  Mrs.  Boyce.  It  had 
struck  him,  by  the  way,  as  remarkable  that  there  was  no  mention 
of  the  wife  in  the  will.  He  could  only  suppose  that  she  was  other- 
wise provided  for.  But  there  had  been  some  curious  expressions 
in  her  letters. 

Where  was  Frank?  Aldous  looked  impatiently  at  the  clock,  as 
Roberts  did  not  reappear.  He  had  invited  Leven  to  walk  with 
him  to  Mellor,  and  the  tiresome  boy  was  apparently  not  to  be 
found.  Aldous  vowed  he  would  not  wait  a  minute,  and  going 
into  the  hall,  put  on  coat  and  hat  with  most  business-like  rapidity. 

He  was  just  equipped  when  Roberts,  somewhat  breathless  with 
long  searching,  arrived  in  time  to  say  that  Sh-  Frank  was  on  the 
front  terrace. 

And  there  Aldous  caught  sight  of  the  straight  though  somewhat 
heavily  built  figure,  in  its  grey  suit  with  the  broad  band  of  black 
across  the  arm. 

•'Hullo,  Frank!  I  thought  you  were  to  look  me  up  in  the 
library.     Roberts  has  been  searching  the  house  for  you." 

"You  said  nothing  about  the  library,"  said  the  boy,  rather 
sulkily,  "and  Roberts  hadn't  far  to  search.  I  have  been  in  the 
smoking-room  till  this  minute." 

Aldous  did  not  argue  the  point,  and  they  set  out.     It  was  pres- 


518  MARCELLA  book  iv 

ently  clear  to  the  elder  man  that  his  companion  was  not  in  the 
best  of  tempers.  The  widowed  Lady  Leven  had  sent  her  firstborn 
over  to  the  Court  for  a  few  days  that  Aldous  might  have  some  dis- 
cussion as  to  his  immediate  future  with  the  young  man.  She  was 
a  silly,  frivolous  woman ;  but  it  was  clear,  even  to  her,  that  Frank 
was  not  doing  very  well  for  himself  in  the  world;  and  advice  she 
would  not  have  taken  from  her  son's  Oxford  tutor  seemed  cogent 
to  her  when  it  came  from  a  Eaeburn.  "Do  at  least,  for  goodness' 
sake,  get  him  to  give  up  his  absurd  plan  of  going  to  America  !  " 
she  wrote  to  Aldous  ;  "  if  he  can't  take  his  degree  at  Oxford,  I  sup- 
pose he  must  get  on  without  it,  and  certainly  his  dons  seem  very 
unpleasant.  But  at  least  he  might  stay  at  home  and  do  his  duty 
to  me  and  his  sisters  till  he  marries,  instead  of  going  off  to  the 
'  Rockies  '  or  some  other  ridiculous  place.  He  really  never  seems 
to  think  of  Fanny  and  Rachel,  or  what  he  might  do  to  help  me  to 
get  them  settled  now  that  his  poor  father  is  gone." 

No ;  certainly  the  young  man  was  not  much  occupied  with 
"  Fanny  and  Rachel !  "  He  spoke  with  ill-concealed  impatience, 
indeed,  of  both  his  sisters  and  his  mother.'  If  his  people  would 
get  in  the  way  of  everything  he  wanted  to  do,  they  needn't  wonder 
if  he  cut  up  rough  at  home.  For  the  present  it  was  settled  that 
he  should  at  any  rate  go  back  to  Oxford  till  the  end  of  the  sum- 
mer term  —  Aldous  heartily  pitying  the  unfortunate  dons  who 
might  have  to  do  with  him — but  after  that  he  entirely  declined 
to  be  bound.  He  swore  he  would  not  be  tied  at  home  like  a  girl ; 
he  must  and  would  see  the  world.  This  in  itself,  from  a  lad  who 
had  been  accustomed  to  regard  his  home  as  the  centre  of  all  de- 
lights, and  had  on  two  occasions  stoutly  refused  to  go  with  his 
family  to  Rome,  lest  he  should  miss  the  best  month  for  his  father's 
trout-stream,  was  sufficiently  surprising. 

However,  of  late  some  tardy  light  had  been  dawning  upon 
Aldous  !  The  night  after  Frank's  arrival  at  the  Court  Betty 
Macdonald  came  down  to  spend  a  few  weeks  with  Miss  Raeburn, 
being  for  the  moment  that  lady's  particular  pet  and  protegee. 
Frank,  whose  sulkiness  during  the  twenty-four  hours  before  she 
appeared  had  been  the  despair  of  both  his  host  and  hostess,  bright- 
ened up  spasmodically  when  he  heard  she  was  expected,  and  went 
fishing  with  one  of  the  keepers,  on  the  morning  before  her  arrival, 
with  a  fair  imitation  of  his  usual  sj^irits.  But  somehow,  since  that 
first  evening,  though  Betty  had  chattered,  and  danced,  and  frol- 
icked her  best,  though  her  little  figm-e  running  up  and  down  the 
big  house  gave  a  new  zest  to  life  in  it,  Frank's  manners  had  gone 
from  bad  to  worse.  And  at  last  Aldous,  who  had  not  as  yet  seen 
the  two  much  together,  and  was  never  an  obsei'vant  man  in  such 
matters,  had  begun  to  have  an  inkling.     Was  it  possible  that  the 


CHAP.  IV  MARCELLA  619 

boy  was  in  love,  and  with  Betty  ?  He  sounded  Miss  Raeburn ; 
found  that  she  did  not  rise  to  his  suggestion  at  all  —  was,  in  fact, 
annoyed  by  it  —  and  with  the  usual  stupidity  of  the  clever  man 
failed  to  draw  any  reasonable  inference  from  the  queerness  of  his 
aunt's  looks  and  sighs. 

As  to  the  little  minx  herself,  she  was  inscrutable.  She  teased 
them  all  in  turns,  Frank,  perhaps,  less  than  the  others.  Aldous, 
as  usual,  found  her  a  delightful  companion.  She  would  walk  all 
over  the  estate  with  him  in  the  most  mannish  garments  and  boots 
conceivable,  which  only  made  her  childish  grace  more  feminine 
and  more  provocative  than  ever.  She  took  an  interest  in  all  his 
tenants ;  she  dived  into  all  his  affairs ;  she  insisted  on  copying 
his  letters.  And  meanwhile,  on  either  side  were  Miss  Raeburn, 
visibly  recovering  day  by  day  her  old  cheeriness  and  bustle,  and 
Frank  —  Frank,  who  ate  nothing,  or  nothing  commensurate  to  his 
bulk,  and,  if  possible,  said  less. 

Aldous  had  begun  to  feel  that  the  situation  must  be  probed  some- 
how, and  had  devised  this  walk,  indeed,  with  some  vague  intention 
of  plying  remonstrances  and  enquii-ies.  He  had  an  old  affection 
for  the  boy,  which  Lady  Leven  had  reckoned  upon. 

The  first  difficulty,  of  course,  was  to  make  him  talk  at  all.  Al- 
dous tried  various  sporting  "  gambits  "  with  very  small  success. 
At  last,  by  good-luck,  the  boy  rose  to  something  like  animation  in 
describing  an  encounter  he  had  had  the  week  before  with  a  pie- 
bald weasel  in  the  course  of  a  morning's  ferreting. 

"All  at  once  we  saw  the  ci-eature's  head  poke  out  of  the  hole  — 
pure  white,  with  a  brown  patch  on  it.  When  it  saw  us,  back  it 
scooted  !  —  and  we  sent  in  another  ferret  after  the  one  that  was 
there  already.  My  goodness !  there  was  a  shindy  doAvn  in  the  earth 
—  you  could  hear  them  rolling  and  kicking  like  anything. '  We 
had  our  guns  ready,  —  but  all  of  a  sudden  everything  stopped — 
not  a  sound  or  a  sign  of  anything !  We  threw  down  our  guns  and 
dug  away  like  blazes.  Presently  we  came  on  the  two  ferrets  gorg- 
ing away  at  a  dead  rabbit,  —  nasty  little  beasts!  —  that  accounted 
ioxthem;  but  where  on  earth  was  the  weasel?  I  really  began  to 
think  we  had  imagined  the  creature,  when,  whisli !  came  a  flash  of 
white  lightning,  and  out  the  thing  bolted  —  pui-e  white  with  a 
splash  of  brown  —  its  winter  coat,  of  course.  I  shot  at  it,  but  it 
was  no  go.  If  I'd  only  put  a  bag  over  the  hole,  and  not  been  an 
idiot,  I  should  have  caught  it." 

The  boy  swung  along,  busily  ruminating  for  a  minute  or  two, 
and  forgetting  his  trouble. 

"I've  seen  one  something  like  it  before,"  he  went  on  —  "ages 
ago,  when  I  was  a  little  chap,  and  Harry  Wharton  and  I  were  out 
rabbitiirg.  By  the  way  —  "  he  stopped  short  —  "  do  you  see  that 
that  fellow's  come  back  ?  " 


520  MARCELLA  book  iv 

"  I  saw  the  paragraph  hi  the  Times  this  morning,"  said  Aldous, 
drily. 

"  And  I've  got  a  letter  from  Fanny  this  morning,  to  say  that  he 
and  Lady  Selina  are  to  be  married  in  July,  and  that  she's  going 
aboixt  making  a  martyr  and  a  saint  of  him,  talking  of  the  'persecu- 
tion '  he's  had  to  put  up  with,  and  the  vulgar  fellows  who  couldn't 
appreciate  him,  and  generally  making  an  ass  of  herself.  Oh !  he 
won't  ask  any  of  us  to  his  wedding  —  trust  him.  It  is  a  rum  busi- 
ness. You  know  Willie  FfoUiot  —  that  queer  dai'k  fellow  —  that 
used  to  be  in  the  10th  Hussars  —  did  all  those  wild  things  in  the , 
Soudan  ?  " 

"  Yes  —  slightly." 

"  I  heard  all  about  it  from  him.  He  was  one  of  that  gambling 
set  at  Harry's  club  there's  been  all  that  talk  about  you  know,  since 
Harry  came  to  grief.  Well!  —  he  was  going  along  Piccadilly  one 
night  last  summer,  quite  late,  between  eleven  and  twelve,  when 
Harry  caught  hold  of  him  from  behind.  Willie  thought  he  was 
out  of  his  mind,  or  drunk.  He  told  me  he  never  saw  anybody  in 
such  a  queer  state  in  his  life.  '  You  come  along  with  me,'  said 
Harry,  '  come  and  talk  to  me,  or  I  shall  shoot  myself ! '  So  AVillie 
asked  him  what  was  up.  '  I'm  engaged  to  be  married,'  said  Harry. 
Whereupon  Willie  remarked  that,  considering  his  manner  and  his 
appearance,  he  was  sorry  for  the  young  lady.  '  Young! '  said  Harry 
as  though  he  would  have  knocked  him  down.  And  then  it  came 
oiit  that  he  had  just  —  that  moment!  —  engaged  himself  to  Lady 
Selina.  And  it  was  the  very  same  day  that  he  got  into  that  pre- 
cious mess  in  the  House  —  the  iiery  same  night!  I  suppose  he  went 
to  her  to  be  comforted,  and  thought  he'd  pull  something  off,  any- 
way!  Why  she  took  him!  But  of  course  she's  no  chicken,  and 
old  Alresford  may  die  any  day.     And  about  the  bribery  business 

—  I  suppose  he  made  her  think  him  an  injured  innocent.  Any- 
way, he  talked  to  Willie,  when  they  got  to  his  rooms,  like  a  raving 
lunatic,  and  you  know  he  was  always  such  a  cool  hand.  '  FfoUiot,' 
he  said,  'can,  you.  come  with  me  to  Siam  next  week?'  'How 
much  ? '  said  Will.  '  I  thoflght  you  were  engaged  to  Lady  Selina.' 
Then  he  swore  little  oaths,  and  vowed  he  had  told  her  he  must 
have  a  year.  'We'll  go  and  explore  those  temples  in  Siam,' he 
said,  and  then  he  muttered  something  about  '  Why  should  I  ever 
come  back?  '  Presently  he  began  to  talk  of  the  strike  —  and  the 
paper  —  and  the  bribe,  and  all  the  rest  of  it,  making  out  a  long 
rigmarole  story.     Oh  !  of  course  he'd  done  everything  for  the  best 

—  trust  him!  —  and  everybody  else  was  a  cur  and  a  slanderer. 
And  FfoUiot  declared  he  felt  quite  pulpy  —  the  man  was  such  a 
wreck ;  and  he  said  he'd  go  with  him  to  Siam,  or  anywhere  else,  if 
he'd  only  cheer  up.     And  they  got  out  the  maps,  and  Harry  began 


CHAP.  IV  ^  MARCELLA  521 

to  quiet  down,  and  at  last  Will  got  liini  to  bed.  Fanny  says  Ffol- 
liot  reports  he  had  great  difficulty  in  dragging  him  home.  How- 
ever, Lady  Selina  has  no  luck!  —  there  he  is." 

"  Oh !  he  will  be  one  of  the  shining  lights  of  our  side  before 
long,"  said  Aldous,  with  resignation.  "  Since  he  gave  up  his  seat 
here,  there  has  been  some  talk  of  finding  him  one  in  the  Aires- 
fords'  ne*ighbourhood,  I  believe.  But  I  don't  suppose  anybody's 
very  anxious  for  him.  He  is  to  address  a  meeting,  I  see,  on  the 
Tory  Labour  Programme  next  week.  The  Clarion,  1  suppose,  will 
go  round  with  him." 

"  Beastly  rag !  "  said  Frank,  fervently.  "  It's  rather  a  queer 
thing,  isn't  it,  that  such  a  clever  chap  as  that  should  have  made 
such  a  mess  of  his  chances.  It  almost  makes  one  not  Iniud  being 
a  fool." 

He  laughed,  but  bitterly,  and  at  the  same  moment  the  cloud 
that  for  some  twenty  minutes  or  so  seemed  to  have  completely 
rolled  away  descended  again  on  eye  and  expression. 

"  Well,  tliere  are  worse  things  than  being  a  fool,"  said  Aldous, 
with  insidious  emphasis  —  "  sulking,  and  shutting  up  with  your 
best  friends,  for  instance." 

Frank  flushed  deeply,  and  turned  upon  him  with  a  sort  of  un- 
certain fury. 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean." 

Whereupon  Aldous  slipped  his  arm  inside  the  boy's,  and  pre- 
pared himself  with  resignation  for  the  scene  that  had  to  be  got 
through  somehow,  when  Frank  suddenly  exclaimed  : 

"  I  say,  there's  Miss  Boyce  ! " 

Never  was  a  man  more  quickly  and  completely  recalled  from 
altruism  to  his  own  affairs.  Aldous  dropped  his  companion's  arm, 
straightened  himself  with  a  thrill  of  the  whole  being,  and  saw 
Marcella  some  distance  ahead  of  them  in  the  Mellor  drive,  which 
they  had  just  entered.  She  was  stooping  over  something  on  the 
ground,  and  was  not  apparently  aware  of  their  approach.  A  ray 
of  cold  sun  came  out  at  the  moment,  touched  the  bending  figure 
and  the  grass  at  her  feet —  grass  starred  with  primroses,  which  she 
was  gathering. 

"  I  didn't  know  you  were  going  to  call,"  said  Frank,  bewildered. 
"  Isn't  it  too  soon?" 

And  he  looked  at  his  companion  in  astonishment. 

"  I  came  to  speak  to  Miss  Boyce  and  her  mother  on  business," 
said  Aldous,  with  all  his  habitual  reserve.  "  I  thought  you 
wouldn't  mind  the  wallc  back  by  yourself." 

"Business?"  the  boy  echoed  involuntarily. 

Aldous  hesitated,  then  said  quietly  : 

"  jyii-.  Boyce  appointed  me  executor  under  his  will." 


522  MARCELLA  book  iv 

Frank  lifted  his  eyebrows,  and  allowed  himself  at  least  an 
inw<ard  "  By  Jove  !  " 

By  this  time  Marcella  had  caught  sight  of  them,  and  was  ad- 
vancing. She  was  in  deep  mom-ning,  but  her  hands  were  full  of 
primroses,  which  shone  against  the  black ;  and  the  sun,  penetrating 
the  thin  gi'een  of  some  larches  to  her  left,  danced  in  her  eyes  and 
on  a  face  full  of  sensitive  and  beautiful  expression.  • 

They  had  not  met  since  they  stood  together  beside  Hallin's 
grave.  This  fact  was  in  both  their  minds.  Aldous  felt  it,  as  it 
were,  in  the  touch  of  her  hand.  What  he  could  not  know  was, 
that  she  was  thinking  quite  as  much  of  his  letter  to  her  mother 
and  its  phrases. 

They  stood  talking  a  little  in  the  sunshine.  Then,  as  Frank 
was  taking  his  leave,  Marcella  said : 

"  Won't  you  wait  for  —  for  Lord  Maxwell,  in  the  old  library  ? 
We  can  get  at  it  from  the  garden,  and  I  have  made  it  quite  habi- 
table.    My  mother,  of  course,  does  not  wish  to  see  anybody." 

Frank  hesitated,  then,  pushed  by  a  certain  boyish  curiosity,  and 
by  the  angry  belief  that  Betty  had  been  carried  off  by  Miss  Rae- 
burn,  and  was  out  of  his  i-each  till  luncheon-time,  said  he  would 
wait.  Marcella  led  the  way,  opened  the  garden-door  of  the  lower 
corridor,  close  to  the  spot  where  she  had  seen  Wharton  standing 
in  the  moonlight  on  a  never-to-be-forgotten  night,  and  then  ushered 
them  into  the  library.  The  beautiful  old  place  had  been  decently 
repaired,  though  in  no  sense  modernised.  The  roof  had  no  holes, 
and  its  delicate  stucco-work,  formerly  stained  and  defaced  by 
damp,  had  been  whitened,  so  that  the  brown  and  golden  tones 
of  the  books  in  the  latticed  cases  told  against  it  with  delightful 
effect.  The  floor  was  covered  with  a  cheap  matting,  and  there 
were  a  few  simple  chairs  and  tables.  A  wood  fire  burnt  on  the 
old  hearth.  Marcella's  books  and  work  lay  about,  and  some  shallow 
earthenware  pans  filled  with  home-grown  hyacinths  scented  the 
air.  What  with  the  lovely  architecture  of  the  room  itself,  its 
size,  its  books  and  old  portraits,  and  the  signs  it  bore  of  simple 
yet  refined  use,  it  would  have  been  difhcult  to  find  a  gentler, 
mellower  place.     Aldous  looked  round  him  with  delight. 

"  I  hope  to  make  a  village  drawing-room  of  it  in  time,"  she  said 
casually  to  Frank  as  she  stooped  to  put  a  log  on  the  fire.  "  I  think 
we  shall  get  them  to  couie,  as  it  has  a  separate  door,  and  scraper, 
and  mat  all  to  itself." 

"  Goodness  !  "  said  Fraiik,  "  they  won't  come.  It's  too  far  from 
the  village." 

"  Don't  you  be  so  sure,"  said  Marcella,  laughing.  "  Mr.  Craven 
has  all  sorts  of  ideas." 

"  Who's  Mr.  Craven?  " 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  623 

"  Didn't  you  meet  hiui  at  my  rooms  ?  " 

"  Oh !  I  remember,"  ejaculated  the  boy  —  "a  frightful  Socialist ! " 

"  And  his  wife's  woi'se,"  said  Marcella,  merrily.  "  They've  come 
down  to  settle  here.     They're  going  to  help  me." 

"  Then  for  mercy's  sake  keep  them  to  yourself,"  cried  Frank, 
"  and  don't  let  them  go  loose  over  the  county.  We  don't  want 
them  at  our  place." 

"  Oh !  your  tiu'u  will  come.  Lord  Maxwell "  —  her  tone  changed 
—  became  shy  and  a  little  grave.  "  Shall  we  go  into  the  Stone 
Parlour?  My  mother  will  come  down  if  you  wish  to  see  her,  but 
she  thought  that  —  that — perhaps  we  could  settle  things." 

Aldous  had  been  standing  by,  hat  in  hand,  watching  her  as  she 
chattered  to  Frank.     As  she  addressed  him  he  gave  a  little  start. 

"  Oh  !  I  think  we  can  settle  everything,"  he  said. 

"  Well,  this  is  rum ! "  said  Frank  to  himself,  as  the  door  closed 
behind  them,  and  instead  of  betaking  himself  to  the  chaii'  and  the 
newspaper  with  which  Marcella  had  provided  him,  he  began  to 
walk  excitedly  up  and  down.  "  Her  father  makes  him  executor  — 
he  manages  her  property  for  her  —  and  they  behave  nicely  to  each 
other,  as  though  nothing  had  ever  happened  at  all.  What  the 
deuce  does  it  mean?  And  all  the  time  Betty  —  why,  Betty's 
devoted  to  him !  —  and  it's  as  plain  as  a  pikestaff  what  that  old 
cat,  INIiss  Raeburn,  is  thinking  of  from  morning  till  night !  Well, 
I'm  beat !  " 

And  throwing  himself  down  on  a  stool  by  the  fire,  his  chin 
between  his  hands,  he  stared  dejectedly  at  the  burnmg  logs. 


CHAPTER  V 

Meanwhile  Marcella  and  her  companion  were  sitting  in  the 
Stone  Parlour  side  by  side,  save  for  a  small  table  between  them, 
which  held  the  various  papers  Aldous  had  brought  with  him.  At 
first,  there  had  been  on  her  side  —  as  soon  as  they  were  alone  — 
a  feeling  of  stifling  embarrassment.  All  the  painful,  proud  sen- 
sations with  which  she  had  received  the  news  of  her  father's 
action  returned  upon  her ;  she  would  have  liked  to  escape ;  she 
shrank  from  what  once  more  seemed  an  encroachment,  a  situa- 
tion as  strange  as  it  was  embarrassmg. 

But  his  manner  very  soon  made  it  impossible,  indeed  ridiculous, 
to  maintain  such  an  attitude  of  mind.  He  ran  through  his  busi- 
ness with  his  usual  clearness  and  rapidity.  It  was  not  compli- 
cated;  her  views  proved  to  be  the  same  as. his;  and  she  was 
empowered  to  decide  for  her  mother.  Aldous  took  notes  of  one 
or  two  of  her  wishes,  left  some  papers  with  her  for  her  mother's 


524  MARCELLA  book  iv 

signature,  and  then  his  work  was  practically  done.  Nothing, 
throughout,  could  have  been  more  reassuring  or  more  everyday 
than  his  demeanour. 

Then,  indeed,  when  the  end  of  their  business  interview  ap- 
proached, and  with  it  the  opportunity  for  conversation  of  a  dif- 
ferent kind,  both  were  conscious  of  a  certain  tremor.  To  him 
this  old  parlour  was  torturingly  full  of  memories.  In  this  very 
place  where  they  sat  he  had  given  her  his  mother's  pearls,  and 
taken  a  kiss  in  return  from  the  cheek  that  was  once  more  so  near 
to  him.  With  what  free  and  exquisite  curves  the  hair  set  about 
the  white  brow  !  How  beautiful  was  the  neck  —  the  hand!  What 
ripened,  softened  charm  in  every  movement !  The  touching  and 
rebuking  thought  rose  in  his  mind  that  from  her  nursing  experi- 
ence, and  its  frank  contact  with  the  ugliest  realities  of  tlie  physi- 
cal life  —  a  contact  he  had  often  shrunk  from  realising  —  there 
had  come  to  her,  not  so  much  added  strength,  as  a  new  subtlety 
and  sweetness,  some  delicate,  vibrating  quality,  that  had  been 
entirely  lacking  to  her  first  splendid  youth. 

Suddenly  she  said  to  him,  with  a  certain  hesitation : 

"  There  was  one  more  point  I  wanted  to  speak  to  you  about. 
Can  you  advise  me  about  selling  some  of  those  railway  shares?" 

She  pointed  to  an  item  in  a  short  list  of  investments  that  lay 
beside  them. 

"  But  why  ? "  said  Aldous,  surprised.  "  They  are  excellent 
property  already,  and  are  going  up  in  value." 

"  Yes,  I  know.  But  I  want  some  ready  money  immediately  — 
more  than  we  have  —  to  spend  on  cottage-building  in  the  village. 
I  saw  a  builder  yesterday  and  came  to  a  first  understanding  with 
him.  We  are  altering  the  water-supply  too.  They  have  begun 
upon  it  already,  and  it  will  cost  a  good  deal." 

Aldous  was  still  puzzled. 

"  I  see,"  he  said.  "  But  —  don't  you  suppose  that  the  income  of 
the  estate,  now  that  your  father  has  done  so  much  to  free  it,  will 
be  enough  to  meet  expenses  of  that  kind,  without  trenching  on 
investments  ?  A  certain  amount,  of  course,  should  be  systemati- 
cally laid  aside  every  year  for  rebuilding,  and  estate  improvements 
generally." 

"Yes;  but  you  see  I  only  regard  half  of  the  income  as  mine." 

She  looked  up  with  a  little  smile. 

He  was  now  standing  in  front  of  her,  against  the  fire,  his  grey 
eyes,  which  could  be,  as  she  well  knew,  so  cold  and  inexpressive, 
bent  upon  her  with  eager  interest. 

"Only  half  the  income?"  he  repeated.  "Ah!"  —  he  smiled 
kindly  —  "is  that  an  arrangement  between  you  and  your  mother?" 

Marcella  let  her  hand  fall  with  a  little  despairing  gesture. 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  525 

"Oh  no!"  she  said  —  "oli  no!  Mamma — mamma  will  take 
nothing  from  me  or  from  the  estate.  She  has  her  own  money 
and  she  will  live  with  me  part  of  the  year." 

The  intonation  in  the  words  touched  Aldous  profoundly. 

"  Part  of  the  year?  "  he  said,  astonished,  yet  not  knowing  how 
to  question  her.     "  Mrs.  Boyce  will  not  make  Mellor  her  home?  " 

"  She  would  be  thankful  if  she  had  never  seen  it,"  said  Marcella, 
quickly  —  "  and  she  would  never  see  it  again  if  it  weren't  for  me. 
It's  dreadful  what  she  went  through  last  year,  when  —  when  I  was 
in  London." 

Her  voice  fell.  Glancing  up  at  him  involuntarily,  her  eye  looked 
with  dread  for  some  chill,  some  stiffening  in  him.  Probably  he  con- 
demned her,  had  always  condemned  her  for  deserting  her  home  and 
her  parents.     But  instead  she  saw  nothing  but  sympathy. 

"Mrs.  Boyce  has  had  a  hard  life,"  he  said,  with  grave  feeling. 

Marcella  felt  a  tear  leap,  and  furtively  raised  her  handkerchief 
to  brush  it  away.  Then,  with  a  natural  selfishness,  her  quick 
thought  took  another  turn.  A  wild  yearning  rose  in  her  mind  to 
tell  him  much  moi'e  than  she  had  ever  done  in  old  days  of  the  miser- 
able home-circumstances  of  her  early  youth  ;  to  lay  stress  on  the 
mean  unhappiness  which  had  depressed  her  own  child-nature  when- 
ever she  was  with  her  parents,  and  had  withered  her  mother's 
character.  Secretly,  passionately,  she  often  made  the  past  an  ex- 
cuse. Excuse  for  what?  For  the  lack  of  delicacy  and  loyalty,  of 
the  best  sort  of  breeding,  which  had  marked  the  days  of  her 
engagement? 

Never  —  never  to  speak  of  it  with  him  !  — to  pour  out  everything 
—  to  ask  him  to  judge,  to  understand,  to  forgive  !  — 

She  pulled  herself  together  by  a  strong  effort,  reminding  herself 
in  a  flash  of  all  that  divided  them  :  —  of  womanly  pride  —  of  Betty 
Macdonald's  presence  at  the  Court  —  of  that  vain  confidence  to 
Hallin,  of  which  her  inmost  being  must  have  been  ashamed,  but 
that  something  calming  and  sacred  stole  upon  her  whenever  she 
thought  of  Hallin,  lifting  everything  concerned  with  him  into  a 
category  of  its  own. 

No ;  let  her  selfish  weakness  make  no  fettering  claim  upon  the 
man  before  her.  Let  her  be  content  with  the  friendship  she  had, 
after  all,  achieved,  that  was  now  doing  its  kindly  best  for  her. 

All  these  images,  like  a  tumultuous  procession,  ran  through  the 
mind  in  a  moment.  He  thought,  as  she  sat  there  with  her  bent 
head,  the  hands  clasped  round  the  knee  in  the  way  he  knew  so 
well,  that  she  was  full  of  her  mother,  and  found  it  difficult  to 
put  what  she  felt  into  words. 

"  But  tell  me  about  your  plan,"  he  said  gently,  "  if  you  will." 

"  Oh  !  it  is  nothing,"  she  said  hurriedly.     "  T  am  afraid  you  will 


526  MARCELLA  book  iv 

think  it  impracticable  —  perhaps  wrong.  It's  only  this  :  you  see, 
as  there  is  no  one  depending  on  me  —  as  I  am  practically  alone  — 
it  seemed  to  me  I  might  make  an  experiment.  Four  thousand  a 
year  is  a  great  deal  more  than  I  need  ever  spend  —  than  I  ought, 
of  course,  to  spend  on  myself.  I  don't  think  altogether  what  I 
used  to  think.  I  mean  to  keep  up  this  house  —  to  make  it  beauti- 
ful, to  hand  it  on,  perhaps  more  beautiful  than  I  found  it,  to  those 
that  come  after.  And  I  mean  to  maintain  enough  service  in  it 
both  to  keep  it  in  order  and  to  make  it  a  social  centre  for  all  the 
people  about — for  everybody  of  all  classes,  so  far  as  I  can.  I  want 
it  to  be  a  place  of  amusement  and  delight  and  talk  to  us  all  — 
especially  to  the  very  poor.  After  all  "  —  her  cheek  flushed  under 
the  quickening  of  her  thought  —  "  everyhodij  on  the  estate,  in  their 
different  degree,  has  contributed  to  this  house,  in  some  sense,  for 
generations.  I  want  it  to  come  into  their  lives  —  to  make  it  their 
possession,  their  pride,  —  as  well  as  mine.  Bui?  then  that  isn't  all. 
The  people  here  can  enjoy  nothing,  use  nothing,  till  they  have  a 
w^orthier  life  of  their  own.  Wages  here,  you  know^,  are  terribly 
low,  much  lower"  —  she  added  timidly  —  "than  with  you.  They 
are,  as  a  rule,  eleven  or  twelve  shillings  a  week.  Now  there  seem 
to  be  about  one  hundred  and  sixty  labourers  on  the  estate  alto- 
gether, in  the  farmers'  employment  and  in  our  own.  Some,  of 
course,  ai'e  boys,  and  some  old  men  earning  a  half-wage.  Mr. 
Craven  and  I  have  worked  it  out,  and  we  find  that  an  average 
weekly  increase  of  five  shillings  per  head  —  which  would  give  the 
men  of  full  age  and  in  full  work  aboat  a  pound  a  week  —  would 
work  out  at  about  two  thousand  a  year." 

She  paused  a  moment,  trying  to  put  her  further  statement  into 
its  best  order. 

•'  Your  farmers,  you  know,"  he  said,  smiling,  after  a  pause,  "  will 
be  your  chief  difficult}'." 

"  Of  course !  But  I  thought  of  calling  a  meeting  of  them.  I 
have  discussed  it  with  Mr.  French  —  of  course  he  thinks  me  mad! 
—  but  he  gave  me  some  advice.  I  should  propose  to  them  all 
fresh  leases,  with  certain  small  advantages  that  Louis  Craven 
thinks  would  tempt  them,  at  a  reduced  rental  exactly  answering 
to  the  rise  in  wages.  Then,  in  return  they  must  accept  a  sort  of 
faii'-w^age  clause,  binding  them  to  pay  henceforward  the  standard 
wage  of  the  estate." 

She  looked  up,  her  face  expressing  urgent  though  silent  in- 
terrogation. 

"  You  must  remember,"  he  said  quickly,  "  that  though  the 
estate  is  recovering,  and  rents  have  been  fairly  paid  about  here 
during  the  last  eighteen  months,  you  may  be  called  upon  at  any 
moment   to  make   the   reductions   which   hampered  your   uncle. 


CHAP.   V  MARCELLA  527 

These  redactions  will,  of  coui'se,  fall  upon  j^ou  as  before,  seeing 
that  the  farmers,  in  a  different  way,  will  be  paying  as  much  as 
before.     Have  you  left  margin  enough  ?  " 

"  I  think  so,"  she  said  eagerly.  "  I  shall  live  here  very  simply, 
and  accumulate  all  the  reserve  fund  I  can.  I  have  set  all  my  heart 
upon  it.     I  know  there  are  not  many  people  could  do  such  a  thing 

—  other  obligations  would,  must,  come  first.  And  it  may  turn 
out  a  mistake.  But  —  whatever  happens  —  whatever  any  of  us. 
Socialists  or  not,  may  hope  for  in  the  futu.re  —  here  one  is  with 
one's  conscience,  and  one's  money,  and  these  people,  who  like 
one's  self  have  but  the  one  life !  In  all  labour,  it  is  the  modern 
question,  isn't  it? — how  much  of  the  product  of  labour  the  work- 
man can  extract  from  the  employer?  About  here  there  is  no 
union  to  act  for  the  labourers — they  have  practically  no  power. 
But  in  the  future,  we  must  surely  hope  they  will  combine,  that  they 
will  be  stronger  —  strong  enough  to  force  a  decent  wage.  What 
ought  to  prevent  my  free  will  anticipating  a  moment — since  I  can 
do  it — that  we  all  want  to  see?" 

She  sjioke  with  a  strong  feeling ;  but  his  ear  detected  a  new  note 

—  something  deeper  and  wistfuller  than  of  old. 

"Well  —  as  you  say,  you  are  for  experiments  !"  he  replied,  not 
finding  it  easy  to  produce  his  own  judgment  quickly.  Then,  in 
another  tone  —  "  it  was  always  Hallin's  cry." 

She  glanced  up  at  him,  her  lips  trembling. 

"I  know.  Do  you  remember  how  he  used  to  say  —  'the  big 
changes  may  come  —  the  big  CoUectivist  changes.  But  neither 
you  nor  I  will  see  them.  I  pray  not  to  see  them.  Meanwhile  —  all 
still  hangs  upon,  comes  back  to,  the  individual.  Here  are  you 
with  your  money  and  power ;  there  are  those  men  and  women 
whom  you  can  share  with  —  in  new  and  honourable  ways — to-day.''  " 

Then  she  checked  herself  suddenly. 

"But  now  I  want  you  to  tell  me  —  will  you  tell  me? — all  the 
objections  you  see.  You  must  often  have  thought  such  things 
over." 

She  was  looking  nervously  straight  before  her.  She  did  not  see 
the  flash  of  half-bitter,  half-tender  irony  that  crossed  his  face. 
Her  tone  of  humility,  of  appeal,  was  so  strange  to  him,  remember- 
ing the  past. 

"  Yes,  very  often,"  he  answered.  "  AVell,  I  think  these  are  the 
kind  of  arguments  you  will  have  to  meet." 

He  went  through  the  objections  that  any  economist  would  be 
sure  to  weigh  against  a  proposal  of  the  kind,  as  clearly  as  he  could, 
and  at  some  length  —  but  without  zest.  What  affected  Marcella 
all  through  was  not  so  much  the  matter  of  what  he  said,  as  the 
manner  of  it.     It  was  so  characteristic  of  the  two  voices  in  him  — 


528  MARCELLA  book  iv 

the  voice  of  the  idealist  checked  and  mocked  always  by  the  voice 
of  the  observer  and  the  student.  A  year  before,  the  little  harangue 
would  have  set  her  aflame  with  impatience  and  wrath.  Now, 
beneath  the  speaker,  she  felt  and  yearned  towards  the  man. 

Yet,  as  to  the  scheme,  when  all  demurs  were  made,  she  was  "  of 
the  same  opinion  still  "!  His  arguments  were  not  new  to  her;  the 
inward  eagerness  over-rode  them. 

"In  my  own  case"  —  he  said  at  last,  the  tone  passing  instantly 
into  reserve  and  shyness,  as  always  happened  when  he  spoke  of 
himself  — "  my  own  wages  are  two  or  three  shillings  higher  than 
those  paid  generally  by  the  farmers  on  the  estate ;  and  we  have 
a  pension  fund.  But  so  far,  I  have  felt  the  risks  of  any  wholesale 
disturbance  of  labour  on  the  estate,  depending,  as  it  must  entirely 
in  my  case,  on  the  individual  life  and  will,  to  be  too  great  to  let 
me  go  further.  I  sometimes  believe  that  it  is  the  farmers  who 
would  really  benefit  most  by  experiments  of  the  kind !  " 

She  protested  vehemently,  being  at  the  moment,  of  course,  not 
at  all  in  love  with  mankind  in  general,  but  only  with  those  mem- 
bers of  mankind  who  came  within  the  eye  of  imagination.  He 
was  enchanted  to  see  the  old  self  come  out  again  —  positive,  obsti- 
nate, generous  ;  to  see  the  old  confident  pose  of  the  head,  the 
dramatic  ease  of  gesture. 

Meanwhile  something  that  had  to  be  said,  that  must,  indeed, 
be  said,  if  he  were  to  give  her  serious  and  official  advice,  pressed 
imcomfortably  on  his  tongue. 

"  You  know,"  he  said,  not  looking  at  her,  when  at  last  she  had 
for  the  moment  exhausted  argument  and  prophecy,  "  you  have  to 
think  of  those  who  will  succeed  you  here;  still  more  you  have  to 
think  —  of  marriage — before  you  pledge  yourself  to  the  halving 
of  your  income." 

Now  he  must  needs  look  at  her  intently,  out  of  sheer  nervous- 
ness. The  difficulty  he  had  had  in  compelling  himself  to  make 
the  speech  at  all  had  given  a  certain  hardness  and  stiffness  to  his 
voice.  She  felt  a  sudden  shock  and  chill  —  resented  what  he  had 
dismally  felt  to  be  an  imperative  duty. 

"  I  do  not  think  I  have  any  need  to  think  of  it  —  in  this  connec- 
tion," she  said  proudly.  And  getting  up,  she  began  to  gather  her 
papers  together. 

The  spell  was  broken,  the  charm  gone.  He  felt  that  he  was 
dismissed. 

With  a  new  formality  and  silence,  she  led  the  way  into  the  hall, 
he  following.  As  they  neared  the  library  there  was  a  sound  of 
voices. 

Marcella  opened  the  door  in  surprise,  and  there,  on  either  side 
of  the  fire,  sat  Betty  Macdonald  and  Frank  Leven. 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  529 

^'That's  a  mercy!"  cried  Betty,  running  forward  to  IMarcella 
and  kissing  her.  "  I  really  don't  know  what  would  have  happened 
if  Ml'.  Leven  and  I  had  been  left  alone  any  longer.  As  for  the 
Kilkenny  cats,  my  dear,  don't  mention  them !  " 

The  child  was  flushed  and  agitated,  and  there  was  an  angr}'  light 
in  her  blue  eyes.     Frank  looked  simply  lumpish  and  miserable. 

"  Yes,  hei'e  I  am,"  said  Betty,  holding  IMarcella,  and  chattering 
as  fast  as  possible.  "  I  made  Miss  Raeburn  bring  me  over,  that  I 
might  yji.si  catch  a  sight  of  you.  She  would  walk  home,  and  leave 
the  carriage  for  me.  Isn't  it  like  all  the  topsy-turvy  things  now- 
adays ?  When  7'm  her  age  I  suppose  I  shall  have  gone  back  to 
dolls.  Please  to  look  at  those  ponies !  —  they're  pawing  your 
gravel  to  bits.  And  as  for  my  watch,  just  inspect  it!" — She 
thrust  it  reproachfully  under  Marcella's  eyes.  "  You've  been  such 
a  time  in  there  talking,  that  Sir  Frank  and  I  have  had  time  to 
quarrel  for  life,  and  there  isn't  a  minute  left  for  anything  rational. 
Oh  !  good-bye,  my  dear,  good-bye.  I  never  kept  Miss  Raeburn 
w^aiting  for  lunch  yet,  did  I,  Mr.  Aldous  ?  and  I  mustn't  begin 
now.  Come  along,  INIr.  Aldous !  You'll  have  to  come  home  with 
me.  I'm  frightened  to  death  of  those  ponies.  You  shan't  drive, 
but  if  they  bolt,  I'll  give  them  to  you  to  pull  in.  Dear,  clear  Mar- 
cella,  let  me  come  again  —  soon  —  directly !  " 

A  few  more  sallies  and  kisses,  a  few  more  angry  looks  at  Frank 
and  appeals  to  Aldous,  who  was  much  less  responsive  than  usual, 
and  the  child  was  seated,  very  erect  and  rosy,  on  the  driving  seat 
of  the  little  pony-carriage,  with  Aldous  beside  her. 

"  Are  you  coming,  Frank  ? "  said  Aldous  ;  "  there's  plenty  of 
room." 

His  strong  brow  had  a  pucker  of  anno3^ance.  As  he  spoke  he 
looked,  not  at  Frank,  but  at  Marcella.  She  was  standing  a  trifle 
back,  among  the  shadows  of  the  doorway,  and  her  attitude  con- 
veyed to  him  an  impression  of  jjroud  aloofness.  A  sigh  that  was 
half  pain,  half  resignation,  passed  his  lips  unconsciously. 

"Thank  you,  I'll  walk,"  said  Frank,  fiercely. 

"  Now,  will  you  please  explain  to  me  why  you  look  like  that, 
and  talk  like  that?"  said  Marcella,  with  cutting  composure,  when 
she  was  once  more  in  the  library,  and  Frank,  crimson  to  the  roots 
of  his  hair,  and  saying  incoherent  things,  had  followed  her  there. 

"  I  should  think  you  might  guess,"  said  Frank,  in  reproachful 
misery,  as  he  hung  over  the  fire. 

"  Not  at  all !  "  said  IMarcella ;  "  you  are  rude  to  Betty,  and  disa- 
greeable to  me,  by  which  I  suppose  that  you.  are  unhappy.     But 
why  should  you  be  allowed  to  show  your  feelings,  when   other 
people  don't?" 
2m 


530  MARCELLA  book  iv 

Frank  fairly  groaned. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  making  efforts  at  a  tragic  calm,  and  looking  for 
his  hat,  "you  wiU,  none  of  you,  be  troubled  with  me  long.  I  shall 
go  home  to-morrow,  and  take  my  ticket  for  California  the  day 
after." 

"FoM,"  said  Marcella,  "go  to  California!  What  right  have  you 
to  go  to  California  ?  " 

"What  right?"  Frank  stared,  then  he  went  on  impetuously. 
"  If  a  gii'l  torments  a  man,  as  Betty  has  been  tormenting  me,  there 
is  nothing  for  it,  I  should  think,  but  to  clear  out  of  the  way.  I 
am  going  to  clear  out  of  the  way,  whatever  anybody  says." 

"  And  shoot  big  game,  I  suppose  —  amuse  yourself  somehow  ?  " 

Frank  hesitated. 

"  Well,  a  fellow  can't  do  nothing,"  he  said  helplessly.  "  I  sup- 
pose I  shall  shoot." 

"  And  what  right  have  you  to  do  it?  Have  you  any  more  right 
than  a  public  official  would  have  to  spend  public  money  in  neglect- 
ing his  duties  ?  " 

Frank  stared  at  her. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  he  said  at  last,  angrily; 
"  give  it  up." 

"  It's  quite  simple  what  I  mean.  You  have  inherited  your  father's 
property.  Your  tenants  pay  you  rent,  that  comes  from  their  labour. 
Are  you  going  to  make  no  return  for  your  income,  and  your  house, 
and  yom"  leisure  ?  " 

"  Ah  !  that's  your  Socialism !  "  cried  the  young  fellow,  roused 
by  her  tone.     "No  return?     Why,  they  have  the  land." 

"  If  I  were  a  thorough-going  Socialist,"  said  Marcella,  steadily, 
"  I  should  say  to  you.  Go !  The  sooner  you  throw  off  all  ties  to 
your  property,  the  sooner  you  prove  to  the  world  that  you  and 
your  class  are  mere  useless  parasites,  the  sooner  we  shall  be  rid  of 
you.  But  unfortunately  /  am  not  such  a  good  Socialist  as  that. 
I  waver  —  I  am  not  sure  of  what  I  wish.  But  one  thing  I  am  sure 
of,  that  unless  people  like  you  are  going  to  treat  their  lives  as  a 
profession,  to  take  their  calling  seriously,  there  are  no  more  super- 
fluous drones,  no  more  idle  plunderers  than  you,  in  all  civilised 
society ! " 

Was  she  pelting  him  in  this  way  that  she  might  so  get  rid  of 
some  of  her  own  inner  smart  and  restlessness  ?  If  so,  the  unlucky 
Frank  could  not  guess  it.  He  could  only  feel  himself  intolerably 
ill-used.  He  had  meant  to  pour  himself  out  to  her  on  the  subject 
of  Betty  and  his  woes,  and  here  she  was  rating  him  as  to  his  duties, 
of  which  he  had  hardly  as  yet  troubled  himself  to  think,  being 
entirely  taken  up  either  with  his  grievances  or  his  enjoyments. 

"  I'm  sure  you  know  you're  talking  nonsense,"  he  said  sulkily, 


CHAP.  V  MAKCELLA  531 

though  he  shrank  from  meeting  her  fiery  look.  "  And  if  I  am  idle, 
there  are  plenty  of  people  idler  than  me  —  people  who  live  on  their 
money,  ^vith  no  land  to  bother  about,  and  nothing  to  do  for  it  at 
all." 

"  On  the  contrary,  it  is  they  who  have  an  excuse.  They  have 
no  natural  opening,  perhaps  —  no  plain  call.  You  have  both,  and, 
as  I  said  before,  you  have  no  right  to  take  holidays  before  you  have 
earned  them.  You  have  got  to  learn  your  business  first,  and  then 
do  it.  Give  your  eight  hours'  daj^  like  other  people  !  AVho  are  j'ou 
that  you  should  have  all  the  cake  of  the  world,  and  other  people 
the  crusts?" 

Frank  walked  to  the  window,  and  stood  staring  out,  with  his 
back  turned  to  her.  Her  words  stung  and  tingled;  and  he  was 
too  miserable  to  fight. 

"  I  shouldn't  care  whether  it  were  cake  or  crusts,"  he  said  at 
last,  in  a  low  voice,  turning  round  to  her,  "  if  only  Betty  would 
have  me." 

"  Do  you  think  she  is  any  the  more  likely  to  have  j^ou,"  said 
ISIarcella,  unrelenting,  "if  you  behave  as  a  loafer  and  a  runaway? 
Don't  you  suppose  that  Betty  has  good  reasons  for  hesitating  when 
she  sees  the  difference  between  you —  and  —  and  other  people?" 

Frank  looked  at  her  sombrely  —  a  queer  mixture  of  expressions 
on  the  face,  in  which  the  maturer  man  was  already  to  be  discerned 
at  war  with  the  powerful  young  animal. 

"  I  suppose  you  mean  Lord  Maxwell  ?  " 

There  was  a  paiise. 

"  You  may  take  what  I  said,"  she  said  at  last,  looking  into  the 
fire,  "as  meaning  anybody  who  pays  honestly  with  work  and 
brains  for  what  society  has  given  him  —  as  far  as  he  can  pay,  at 
any  rate." 

"Xow  look  here,"  said  Frank,  coming  dolefully  to  sit  down  be- 
side her ;  "  don't  slate  me  any  more.  I'm  a  bad  lot,  I  know  —  well, 
an  idle  lot —  I  don't  think  I  am  a  bad  lot  —  But  it's  no  good  your 
preaching  to  me  while  Betty's  sticking  pins  into  me  like  this. 
Now  just  let  me  tell  you  how  she's  been  behaving." 

Marcella  succumbed,  and  heard  him.  He  glanced  at  her  sur- 
reptitiously from  time  to  time,  but  he  could  make  nothing  of  her. 
She  sat  very  quiet  while  he  described  the  constant  companionship 
between  Aldous  and  Betty,  and  the  evident  designs  of  Miss  Rae- 
burn.  Just  as  when  he  made  his  first  confidences  to  her  in  London, 
he  was  vaguely  conscious  that  he  was  doing  a  not  very  gentlemanlj'' 
thing.  But  again,  he  was  too  unhappy  to  restrain  himself,  and  he 
longed  somehow  to  make  an  ally  of  her. 

"Well,  I  have  only  one  thing  to  say,"  she  said  at  last,  with  an 
odd  nervous  impatience  —  "go  and  ask  her,  and  have  done  with 


532  MAECELLA  book  iv 

it !  ~she  might  have  some  respect  for  you  then.  No,  T  won't  help 
you;  but  if  you  don't  succeed,  I'll  pity  you  —  I  promise  you  that. 
And  now  you  must  go  away." 

He  went,  feeling  himself  hardly  treated,  yet  conscious  neverthe- 
less of  a  certain  stirring  of  the  moral  waters  which  had  both 
stimulus  and  balm  in  it. 

She,  left  behind,  sat  quiet  in  the  old  library  for  a  few  lonely 
minutes.  The  boy's  plight  made  her  altei-nately  scornful  and 
repentant  of  her  sharpness  to  him.  As  to  his  report,  one  moment 
it  plunged  her  in  an  anguish  she  dared  not  fathom ;  the  next  slie 
was  incredulous  —  could  not  simply  make  herself  take  the  thing 
as  real. 

But  one  thing  had  been  real  —  that  word  from  Aldous  to  her  of 
"  marriage  " .'  The  nostril  dilated,  the  breast  heaved,  as  she  lost 
all  thought  of  Frank  in  a  resentful  passion  that  could  neitlier 
justify  nor  calm  itself.  It  seemed  still  as  though  he  had  struck 
her.     Yet  she  knew  well  that  she  had  nothing  to  forgive. 

Next  morning  she  went  down  to  the  village  meaning  to  satisfy 
herself  on  two  or  three  points  connected  with  the  new  cottages. 
On  the  way  she  knocked  at  the  Eectory  garden-door,  in  the  hope 
of  finding  JNIary  Harden  and  persuading  her  to  come  with  her. 

She  had  not  seen  much  of  Mary  since  their  return.  Still,  she 
had  had  time  to  be  painfully  struck  once  or  twice  with  the  white 
and  bloodless  look  of  the  Rector's  sister,  and  with  a  certain  patient 
silence  about  her  which  seemed  to  Marcella  new.  Was  it  the 
monotony  of  the  life?  or  had  both  of  them  been  overworking  and 
underfeeding  as  usual  ?  The  Rector  had  received  Marcella  with 
his  old  gentle  but  rather  distant  kindness.  Two  years  before  he 
had  felt  strongly  about  many  of  her  proceedings,  and  had  expressed 
himself  frankly  enough,  at  least  to  Mary.  Now  he  had  put  his 
former  disapprovals  out  of  his  mind,  and  was  only  anxious  to 
work  smoothly  with  the  owner  of  Mellor.  He  had  a  great  respect 
for  "  dignities,"  and  she,  as  far  as  the  village  was  concerned,  was 
to  be  his  "dignity"  henceforward.  Moreover,  he  humbly  and 
truly  hoped  that  she  might  be  able  to  enlighten  him  as  to  a  good 
many  modern  conceptions  and  ideas  about  the  poor,  for  which, 
absorbed  as  he  was,  either  in  almsgiving  of  the  traditional  type, 
or  spiritual  ministration,  or  sacramental  theory,  he  had  little  time, 
and,  if  the  truth  were  known,  little  affinity. 

In  answer  to  her  knock  Marcella  heard  a  faint  "  Come  in  "  from 
the  interior  of  the  house.  She  walked  into  the  dining-room,  and 
found  jSIary  sitting  by  the  little  table  in  tears.  There  were  some 
letters  before  her,  which  she  pushed  away  as  Marcella  entered,  but 
she  did  not  attempt  to  disguise  her  agitation. 


CHAP.  V  MARCELLA  633 

"Wliat  is  it,  dear?  Tell  me,"  said  Marcella,  sitting  down 
beside  her,  and  kissing  one  of  the  hands  she  held. 

And'Mary  told  her.  It  was  the  story  of  her  life  —  a  simple  tale 
of  ordinary  things,  such  as  wring  the  quiet  hearts  and  train *the 
unnoticed  saints  of  this  w'orld.  In  her  first  youth,  Avhen  Charles 
Harden  was  for  a  time  doing  some  divinity  lecturing  in  liis  Oxford 
college,  ]\Iai'y  had  gone  up  to  spend  a  year  with  him  in  lodgings. 
Their  Sunday  teas  and  other  small  festivities  were  frequented  by 
her  brother's  friends,  men  of  lilce  type  with  himself,  and  most  of 
them  either  clergymen  or  about  to  be  ordained.  Between  one  of 
them,  a  young  fellow  looking  out  for  his  first  curacy,  and  Mary  an 
attachment  had  sprung  up,  which  Mary  could  not  even  now  speak 
of.  She  hurried  over  it,  with  a  trembling  voice,  to  the  tragedy 
beyond.  Mr.  Shelton  got  his  curacy,  went  off  to  a  parish  in  the 
Lincolnshire  Fens,  and  there  was  talk  of  their  being  married  in  a 
year  or  so.  But  the  exposure  of  a  bitter  winter's  night,  risked  in 
the  struggle  across  one  of  the  bleakest  flats  of  the  district  to  carry 
the  Sacrament  to  a  dying  parishioner,  had  brought  on  a  peculiar 
and  agonising  form  of  neuralgia.  And  from  this  pain,  so'  nobly 
earned,  had  sprung  —  oh!  mystery  of  human  fate!  —  a  morphia- 
habit,  with  all  that  such  a  habit  means  for  mind  and  body.  It  was 
discovered  by  the  poor  fellow's  brother,  who  broiight  him  up  to 
London  and  tried  to  cure  him.  Meanwhile  he  himself  had  written 
to  ]\Iary  to  give  her  up.  "  I  have  no  will  left,  and  am  no  longer  a 
man,"  he  wrote  to  her.  "It  would  be  an  outrage  on  my  part,  and 
a  sin  on  yours,  if  we  did  not  cancel  our  promise."  Charles,  who 
took  a  hard,  ascetic  view,  held  much  the  same  language,  and  Mary 
submitted,  heart-broken. 

Then  came  a  gleam  of  hope.  The  brother's  care  and  affection 
prevailed;  there  were  rumours  of  great  improvement,  of  a  resump- 
tion of  work.  "  Just  two  years  ago,  when  you  first  came  here,  I 
was  beginning  to  believe  "  —  she  turned  away  her  head  to  hide  the 
rise  of  tears  — - "  that  it  might  still  come  right."  But  after  some 
six  or  eight  months  of  clerical  work  in  London  fresh  trouble  devel- 
oped, lung  mischief  showed  itself,  and  the  system,  undermined  by 
long  and  deep  depression,  seemed  to  capitulate  at  once. 

"  He  died  last  December,  at  Madeira,"  said  Mary,  quietly.  "  I 
saw  him  before  he  left  England.  We  wrote  to  each  other  almost 
to  the  end.  He  was  quite  at  peace.  This  letter  here  was  from 
the  chaplain  at  Madeira,  who  was  kind  to  him,  to  tell  me  about 
his  grave." 

That  was  all.  It  was  the  sort  of  story  that  somehow  might  have 
been  expected  to  belong  to  Mary  Harden  —  to  her  round,  plaintive 
face,  to  her  narrow,  refined  experience  ;  and  she  told  it  in  a  way 
eminently  characteristic  of  her  modes  of  thinking,  religious  or 


534  MARCELLA  book  iv 

social,  with  old-fashioned,  or  conventional  phrases  which,  whatever 
might  be  the  case  with  other  people,  had  lost  none  of  their  bloom 
or  meaning  for  her. 

Marcella's  face  showed  her  sympathy.  They  talked  for  half  an 
hour,  and  at  the  end  of  it  Mary  flung  her  arms  round  her  com- 
panion's neck. 

"  There  !  "  she  said,  "  now  we  must  not  talk  any  more  about  it. 
I  am  glad  I  told  you.  It  was  a  comfort.  And  somehow  —  I  don't 
mean  to  be  unkind ;  but  I  couldn't  have  told  you  in  the  old  days  — 
it's  wonderful  how  much  better  I  like  you  now  than  I  used  to  do, 
though  perhaps  we  don't  agree  much  better." 

Both  laughed,  though  the  eyes  of  both  were  full  of  tears. 

Presently  they  were  in  the  village  together.  As  they  neared  the 
Hurds'  old  cottage,  which  was  now  empty  and  to  be  pulled  down, 
a  sudden  look  of  disgust  crossed  Marcella's  face. 

"  Did  I  tell  you  my  news  of  Minta  Hurd?  "  she  said. 

No  ;  Mary  had  heard  nothing.  So  Marcella  told  the  grotesque 
and  ugly  news,  as  it  seemed  to  her,  which  had  reached  her  at 
Amalfi.  Jim  Hurd's  widow  was  to  be  married  again,  to  the  queer 
lanky  "  professor  of  elocution,"  with  the  Italian  name  and  shifty 
eye,  who  lodged  on  the  floor  beneath  her  in  Brown's  Buildings, 
and  had  been  wont  to  come  in  of  an  evening  and  play  comic 
songs  to  her  and  the  children.  Mai'cella  was  vehemently  sure  that 
he  was  a  charlatan  —  that  he  got  his  living  by  a  number  of  small 
dishonesties,  that  he  had  scented  IMinta's  pension.  But  apart 
from  the  question  whether  he  would  make  JMinta  a  decent  hus- 
band, or  live  upon  her  and  beat  her,  was  the  fact  itseK  of  her 
re-marriage,  in  itself  hideous  to  the  girl. 

"  Marry  him ! "  she  said.    "  Marry  any  one !     Isn't  it  incredible  ?  " 

They  were  in  front  of  the  cottage.  Marcella  paused  a  moment 
and  looked  at  it.  She  saw  again  in  sharp  vision  the  miserable 
woman  fainting  on  the  settle,  the  dwarf  sitting,  handcuffed,  under 
the  ey*'of  his  captors;  she  felt  again  the  rush  of  that  whirlwind 
of  agony  through  which  she  had  borne  the  wife's  helpless  soul  in 
that  awful  dawn. 

And  after  that  —  exit!  —  with  her  "-professor  of  elocution."  It 
made  the  girl  sick  to  think  of.  And  Mary,  out  of  a  Puseyite 
dislike  of  second  marriage,  felt  and  expressed  much  tlie  same 
rej)ulsion. 

Well  —  Minta  Hurd  was  far  away,  and  if  she  had  been  there  to 
defend  herseK  her  powers  of  expression  would  have  been  no  match 
for  theirs.  Nor  does  youth  understand  such  pleas  as  she  might 
have  urged. 

"Will  Lord  Maxwell  continue  the  pension?  "  said  Mary. 


CHAP.   V  MARCELLA  535 

Marcella  stopped  again,  involuntarily. 

"  So  that  was  his  doing  ?  "  she  said.     "  I  supposed  as  inucli." 

"  You  did  not  know  ?  "  cried  Mary,  in  disti-ess.  "  Oh  !  I  believe 
I  ought  not  to  have  said  anything  about  it." 

"  I  always  guessed  it,"  said  Marcella,  shortly,  and  they  walked 
on  in  silence. 

Presently  they  found  themselves  in  front  of  Mrs.  Jellison's  very 
trim  and  pleasant  cottage,  which  lay  farther  along  the  common,  to 
the  left  of  the  road  to  the  Court.  There  was  an  early  pear-tree  in 
blossom  over  the  porch,  and  a  swelling  greenery  of  buds  in  the 
little  garden. 

"  Will  you  come  in?  "  said  INIary.  "  I  should  like  to  see  Isabella 
Westall." 

Marcella  started  at  the  name. 

"  How  is  she  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Just  the  same.  She  has  never  been  in  her  right  mind  since. 
But  she  is  quite  harmless  and  quiet." 

They  found  Mrs.  Jellisoii  on  one  side  of  the  fire,  with  her  daugh- 
ter on  the  other,  and  the  little  six-year-old  Johnnie  playing  between 
them.  Mrs.  Jellison  was  straw-plaiting,  twisting  the  straws  with 
amazing  rapidity,  her  fingers  stained  with  red  from  the  dye  of 
them.  Isabella  was,  as  usual,  doing  nothing.  She  stared  when 
Marcella  and  Mary  came  in,  but  she  took  no  other  notice  of  them. 
Her  powerful  and  tragic  face  had  the  look  of  something  originally 
full  of  intention,  from  which  spirit  and  meaning  had  long  departed, 
leaving  a  fine  but  lifeless  outline.  Marcella  had  seen  it  last  on 
the  night  of  the  execution,  in  ghastly  apparition  at  Minta  Hurd's 
window,  when  it  might  have  been  caught  by  some  sculptor  in  quest 
of  the  secrets  of  violent  expression,  fixed  in  clay  or  marble,  and 
labelled  "  Revenge,"  or  "  Passion." 

Its  passionless  emptiness  now  filled  her  with  pity  and  horror. 
She  sat  down  beside  the  widow  and  took  her  hand.  Mrs.  Westall 
allowed  it  for  a  moment,  then  drew  her  own  away  suddenly,  and 
Marcella  saw  a  curious  and  sinister  contraction  of  the  eyes. 

"  Ah !  yo  never  know  how  much  Isabella  unnerstan's,  an'  how 
much  she  don't,"  Mrs.  Jellison  was  saying  to  Mary.  "  I  can't  alius 
make  her  out,  but  she  don't  give  no  trouble.  An'  as  for  that  boy, 
he's  a  chirruper,  he  is.  He  gives  'em  fine  times  at  school,  he  do. 
Miss  Barton,  she  ast  him  in  class,  Thursday,  'bout  Ananias  and 
Sappira.  '  Johnnie,'  says  she,  '  whatever  made  'em  do  sich  a 
wicked  thing?'  'Well,  /  do'n'  know,'  says  he;  'it  was  jus'  their 
nassty  good-for-nothink,'  says  he ;  '  but  they  was  great  sillies,'  says 
he.  Oh!  he  don't  mean  no  harm! — Lor'  bless  yer,  the  men  is  all 
born  contrary,  and  they  can't  help  themselves.  Oh  I  thank  yer, 
miss,  my  'ealth  is  pretty  tidy,  though  I  'ave  been  plagued   this 


536  MARCELLA  book  iv 

winter  witlx  a  something  they  call  the  'flenzy.  I  wor  very  bad ! 
'  Yo  go  to  bed,  Mrs.  Jellison,'  says  Dr.  Sharpe,  '  or  yo'll  know  of 
it.'  But  I  worn't  goin'  to  be  talked  to  by  'im.  Why,  I  knoM'ed  'ini 
when  he  wor  no  'igher  nor  Johnnie.  An'  I  kep'  puddlin'  along, 
an'  one  mornin'  I  wor  fairly  choked,  an'  I  just  crawled  into  that 
parlour,  an'  I  took  a  sup  o'  brandy  out  o'  the  bottle  "  —  she  looked 
complacently  at  Mary,  quite  conscious  that  the  Rector's  sister  must 
be  listening  to  her  with  disapproving  ears  —  "  an',  Lor'  bless  yer, 
it  cut  the  phlegm,  it  did,  that  very  moment.  My !  I  did  cough. 
I  drawed  it  up  by  the  yard,  I  did  —  and  I  crep'  back  along  the 
wail,  and  yo  cud  ha'  knocked  me  down  wi'  one  o'  my  own  straws. 
But  I've  been  better  iver  since,  an'beginnin'  to  eat  my  vittles,  too, 
though  I'm  never  no  great  pecker  —  I  ain't  —  not  at  no  time." 

Mary  managed  to  smother  her  emotions  on  the  subject  of  the 
brandy,  and  the  old  woman  chattered  on,  throwing  out  the  news 
of  the  village  in  a  series  of  humorous  fragments,  tinged  in  gen- 
eral with  the  lowest  opinion' of  human  nature. 

When  the  girls  took  leave  of  her,  she  said  slyly  to  Marcella : 

"  An'  'ow  about  your  plaitin',  miss  ?  —  though  I  dessay  I'm  a 
bold  'un  for  astin'." 

Marcella  coloured. 

"  Well,  I've  got  it  to  think  about,  Mrs.  Jellison.  We  must  have 
a  meeting  in  the  village  and  talk  it  over  one  of  these  days." 

The  old  woman  nodded  in  a  shrewd  silence,  and  watched  them 
depart. 

"  WuU,  I  reckon  Jimmy  Gedge  ujl  lasst  my  time,''  she  said  to 
herself  with  a  chuckle. 

If  Mrs.  Jellison  had  this  small  belief  in  the  powers  of  the  new 
mistress  of  Mellor  over  matters  which,  according  to  her,  had  been 
settled  generations  ago  by  "  the  Lord  and  natur', "  Marcella  cer- 
tainly was  in  no  mood  to  contradict  her.  She  walked  through  the 
village  on  her  return  scanning  everything  about  her  — the  slat- 
ternly girls  plaiting  on  the  doorsteps,  the  children  in  the  lane, 
the  loungers  round  the  various  "  publics,"  the  labourers,  old  and 
young,  who  touched  their  caps  to  her  —  with  a  moody  and  pas- 
sionate eye. 

"  Mary !  "  she  broke  out  as  they  neared  the  Rectory,  "  I  shall  be 
twenty-four  directly.  How  much  harm  do  you  think  I  shall  have 
done  here  by  the  time  I  am  sixty-four  ?  " 

Mary  laughed  at  her,  and  tried  to  cheer  her.  But  Marcella  was 
in  the  depths  of  self-disgust. 

"What  is  wanted,  really  wanted,"  she  said  with  intensitj^,  "is 
not  viy  help,  but  their  growth.  How  can  I  make  them  take  for 
themselves  —  take,   roughly  and  selfishly  even,   if  they   will   only 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  537 

take!     As  for  my  giving,  what  relation  has  it  to  anything  real  or 
lasting?" 

Mary  was  scandalised. 

"I  declare  you  are  as  bad  as  Mr.  Craven,"  she  said.  "He  told 
Charles  yesterday  that  the  curtseys  of  the  old  women  in  the  vil- 
lage to  him  and  Charles  —  women  old  enough  to  be  their  grand- 
mothers—  sickened  him  of  the  whole  place,  and  that  he  should 
regard  it  as  the  chief  object  of  his  work  here  to  make  such  things 
impossible  in  the  future.  Or  perhaps  you're  still  of  'Mr.  —  Mr. 
Wharton's  opinion  —  you'll  be  expecting  Charles  and  me  to  give 
up  charity.  But  it's  no  good,  my  dear.  We'i'e  not  '  advanced,' 
and  we  never  shall  be." 

At  the  mention  of  Wharton  Marcella  threw  her  proud  head 
back ;  wave  after  wave  of  changing  expression  passed  over  the 
face. 

"  [  often  remember  the  things  Mr.  Wharton  said  in  this  village," 
she  said  at  last.  "  There  was  life  and  salt  and  power  in  many  of 
them.  It's  not  what  he  said,  but  what  he  was,  that  one  wants  to 
forget." 

They  parted  presently,  and  Marcella  went  heavily  home.  The 
rising  of  the  spring,  the  breath  of  the  April  air,  had  never  yet 
been  sad  and  oppressive  to  her  as  they  were  to-day. 


CHAPTER  VI 

"  Oh  !  Miss  Boyce,  may  I  come  in  ?  " 

The  voice  was  Frank  Leven's.  IMarcella  was  sitting  in  the  old 
library  alone  late  on  the  following  afternoon.  Louis  Craven,  who 
was  now  her  paid  agent  and  adviser,  had  been  with  her,  and  she 
had  accounts  and  estimates  before  her. 

"  Come  in,"  she  said,  startled  a  little  by  Frank's  tone  and  manner, 
and  looking  at  him  interrogatively. 

Frank  shut  the  heavy  old  door  carefully  behind  him.  Then,  as 
he  advanced  to  her  she  saw  that  his  flushed  face  wore  an  expression 
unlike  anything  she  had  yet  seen  there  — of  mingled  joy  and  fear. 

She  drew  back  involuntarily. 
-     "  Is  there  anything  —  anything  wrong  ?  " 

"No,"  he  said  impetuously,  "  no!  But  I  have  something  to  tell 
you,  and  I  don't  know  how.  I  don't  know  whether  I  ought.  I 
have  run  almost  all  the  way  from  the  Court." 

And,  indeed,  he  could  hardly  get  his  breath.  He  took  a  stool  she 
pushed  to  him,  and  tried  to  collect  himself.  She  heard  her  heart 
beat  as  she  waited  for  him  to  speak. 

"It's  about  Lord  Maxwell,"  he  said  at  last,  huskily,  turning  his 


538  MARCELLA  book  iv 

head  away  from  her  to  the  fire.  "  I'v^e  just  had  a  long  walk  with 
him.  Then  he  left  me ;  he  had  no  idea  I  came  on  here.  But  some- 
thing drove  me  ;  I  felt  I  must  come,  I  must  tell.  Will  you  promise 
not  to  be  angry  with  me  —  to  believe  that  I've  thought  about  it  — 
that  I'm  doing  it  for  tlie  best?" 

He  looked  at  her  nervously. 

"  If  you  wouldn't  keep  me  waiting  so  long,"  she  said  faintly, 
while  her  cheeks  and  lips  grew  white. 

"  Well,  —  I  was  mad  this  morning!  Betty  hasn't  spoken  to  me 
since  yesterday.  She's  been  always  about  with  him,  and  Miss 
Raeburn  let  me  see  once  or  twice  last  night  that  she  thought  I  was 
in  the  way.  I  never  slept  a  wink  last  night,  and  I  kept  out  of  their 
sight  all  the  morning.  Then,  after  lunch,  I  went  up  to  him,  and  I 
asked  him  to  come  for  a  walk  with  me.  He  looked  at  me  rather 
queerly  ^ — ^  I  suppose  I  was  pretty  savage.  Then  he  said  he'd  come. 
And  oif  we  went,  ever  so  far  across  the  park.  And  I  let  out.  I  don't 
know  what  I  said ;  I  suppose  I  made  a  beast  of  myself.  But  any- 
way, I  asked  him  to  tell  me  what  he  meaiit,  and  to  tell  me,  if  he  could, 
what  Betty  meant.  I  said  I  knew  I  was  a  cool  hand,  and  he  might 
turn  me  out  of  the  house,  and  refuse  to  have  anything  more  to  do 
with  me  if  he  liked.  But  I  was  going  to  rack  and  ruin,  and  should 
never  be  any  good  till  I  knew  where  I  stood  —  and  Betty  would 
never  be  serious — and,  in  short,  was  he  in  love  with  her  himself? 
for  any  one  could  see  what  Miss  Raeburn  was  thinking  of." 

The  boy  gulped  down  something  like  a  sob,  and  tried  to  give  him- 
self time  to  be  coherent  again.     Marcella  sat  like  a  stone. 

"  Wiien  he  heard  me  say  that  —  'in  love  with  her  yourself,'  he 
stopped  dead.  I  saw  that  I  had  made  him  angry.  '  What  right 
have  you  or  any  one  else,'  he  said,  vei'y  short,  '  to  ask  me  such  a 
question?'  Then  I  just  lost  my  head,  and  said  anything  that 
came  handy.  I  told  him  everybody  talked  about  it  —  which,  of 
course,  was  rubbish  —  and  at  last  I  said,  'Ask  anybody;  ask  the 
Winterbournes,  ask  Miss  Boyce  —  they  all  think  it  as  much  as  I  do.' 
'  Miss  Boyce ! '  he  said  —  '  Miss  Boyce  thinks  I  want  to  marry  Betty 
Macdonald  ? '  Then  I  didn't  know  what  to  say  —  for,  of  course,  I 
knew  I'd  taken  your  name  in  vain ;  and  he  sat  down  on  the  grass 
beside  a  little  stream  there  is  in  the  park,  and  he  didn't  speak  to 
me  for  a  long  time  —  I  could  see  him  throwing  little  stones  into  the 
water.  And  at  last  he  called  me.  '  Frank  1 '  he  said ;  and  I  went 
up  to  him.     And  then  —  " 

The  lad  seemed  to  tremble  all  over.  He  bent  forward  and  laid 
his  hand  on  Marcella's  knee,  touching  lier  cold  ones. 

"  And  then  he  said,  '  I  can't  understand  yet,  Frank,  how  you  or 
anybody  else  can  have  mistaken  my  friendship  for  Betty  Macdon- 
ald.    At  any  rate,  I  know  there's  been  no  mistake  on  her  part. 


CIIA1-.  VI  MARCELLA  539 

And  if  you  take  my  advice,  you'll  go  and  speak  to  her  like  a  man, 
with  all  youi-  heart,  and  see  what  she  says.  You  don't  deserve  her 
yet,  that  I  can  tell  you.  As  for  me '  —  I  can't  describe  the  look 
of  his  face ;  I  only  know  I  wanted  to  go  away  — '  you  and  I  will 
be  friends  for  many  years,  I  hope,  so  perhaps  you  may  just  under- 
stand this,  once  for  all.  For  me  there  never  has  been,  and  there 
never  will  be,  but  one  woman  in  the  world  —  to  love.  And  you 
know,'  he  said  after  a  bit,  'or  you  ought  to  know,  very  well,  who 
that  woman  is.'  And  then  he  got  up  and  walked  away.  He  did 
not  ask  me  to  come,  and  1  felt  I  dared  not  go  after  him.  And 
then  1  lay  and  thought.  I  remembered  being  here ;  I  thought  of 
what  I  had  said  to  you  —  of  what  I  had  fancied  now  and  then 
about  —  about  you.  I  felt  myself  a  brute  all  round;  for  what 
right  had  I  to  come  and  tell  you  what  he  told  me?  And  yet, 
there  it  was  — - 1  had  to  come.  And  if  it  was  no  good  my  coming, 
why,  we  needn't  say  anything  about  it  ever,  need  we  ?  But  —  but 
— just  look  here,  Miss  Boyce ;  if  you  —  if  you  could  begin  over 
again,  and  make  Aldous  happy,  then  there'd  be  a  good  many  other 
people  happy  too  —  I  can  tell  you  that." 

He  could  hardly  speak  plainlj^  Evidently  there  was  on  him 
an  overmastering  impulse  of  personal  devotion,  gratitude,  remorse, 
which  for  the  moment  even  eclipsed  his  young  passion.  It  was_ 
but  vaguely  explained  by  anything  he  had  said ;  it  rested  clearly 
on  the  whole  of  his  afternoon's  experience. 

But  neither  could  Mai'cella  speak,  and  her  pallor  began  to  alarm 
him. 

"  I  say  1 "  he  cried  ;  "  you're  not  angry  with  me  ?  " 

She  moved  away  from  him,  and  with  her  shaking  finger  began 
to  cut  the  pages  of  a  book  that  lay  open  on  the  mantelpiece.  The 
little  mechanical  action  seemed  gradually  to  restore  her  to  self- 
control. 

"  I  don't  think  I  can  talk  about  it,"  she  said  at  last,  with  an 
effort ;  "  not  now." 

"Oh!  I  know,"  said  Frank,  in  penitence,  looking  at  her  black 
dress  ;  "  you've  been  upset,  and  had  such  a  lot  of  ti'ouble.    But  I —  " 

She  laid  her  hand  on  his  shoulder.  He  thought  he  had  never 
seen  her  so  beautiful,  pale  as  she  was. 

"  I'm  not  the  least  angry.  I'll  tell  yovi  so  —  another  day.  Now, 
are  you  going  to  Betty?  " 

The  young  fellow  sprang  up,  all  his  expression  changing,  answer- 
ing to  the  stimulus  of  the  word. 

"They'll  be  home  directly.  Miss  Raeburn  and  Betty,"  he  said 
steadily,  buttoning  his  coat;  "they'd  gone  out  calling  some- 
where. Oh !  she'll  lead  me  a  wretched  life,  will  Betty,  before 
she's  done !  " 


540  MARCELLA  book  iv 

A  charming  little  ghost  of  a  smile  crossed  Marcella's  white 
lips. 

"  Probably  Betty  knows  her  business,"  she  said  ;  "  if  she's  quite 
unmanageable,  send  her  to  me." 

In  his  general  turmoil  of  spirits  the  boy  caught  her  hand  and 
kissed  it  —  would  have  liked,  indeed,  to  kiss  her  and  all  the  world. 
But  she  laughed,  and  sent  him  away,  and  with  a  sly,  lingering  look 
at  her  he  departed. 

She  sank  into  her  chair  and  never  moved  for  long.  The  April 
sun  was  just  sinking  behind  the  cedars,  and  through  the  open  south 
window  of  the  library  came  little  spring  airs  and  scents  of  spring 
flowers.  There  was  an  endless  twitter  of  birds,  and  beside  her  the 
soft  chatter  of  the  wood  fire.  An  hour  before,  her  mood  had  been 
at  open  war  with  the  spring,  and  with  all  those  impulses  and 
yearnings  in  herself  which  answered  to  it.  Now  it  seemed  to 
her  that  a  wonderful  and  buoyant  life,  akin  to  all  the  vast  stir, 
the  sweet  revivals  of  Nature,  was  flooding  her  whole  being. 

She  gave  herself  up  to  it,  in  a  trance  interwoven  with  all  the 
loveliest  and  deepest  things  she  had  ever  felt  —  with  her  memory 
of  Hallin,  with  her  new  gropings  after  God.  Just  as  the  light  was 
going  she  got  up  hurriedly  and  went  to  her  writing-table.  She 
wrote  a  little  note,  sat  over  it  awhile,  with  her  face  hidden  in 
her  hands,  then  sealed,  addressed,  and  stamped  it.  She  went  out 
herself  to  the  hall  to  put  it  in  the  letter-box.  For  the  rest  of  the 
evening  she  went  about  in  a  state  of  dream,  overcome  sometimes 
by  rushes  of  joy,  which  yet  had  in  them  exquisite  elements  of  pain ; 
hungering  for  the  passage  of  the  hours,  for  sleep  that  might  cancel 
some  of  them ;  picturing  the  road  to  the  Court  and  Widrington, 
along  which  the  old  postman  had  by  now  carried  her  letter  —  the 
bands  of  moonlight  and  shade  lying  across  it,  the  quiet  of  the  bud- 
ding woods,  and  the  spot  on  tlie  hillside  where  he  had  spoken  to 
her  in  that  glowing  October.  It  must  lie  all  night  in  a  dull  ofBce 
—  her  letter ;  she  was  impatient  and  sorry  for  it.  And  when  he 
got  it,  it  would  tell  him  noticing,  though  she  thought  it  would 
rather  surprise  him.  It  was  the  merest  formal  request  that  he 
would,  if  he  could,  come  and  see  her  again  the  following  morning 
on  business. 

During  the  evening  Mrs.  Boyce  lay  on  the  sofa  and  read.  It 
always  still  gave  the  daughter  a  certain  shock  of  surprise  when  she 
saw  the  slight  form  resting  in  this  way.  In  words  Mrs.  Boyce 
would  allow  nothing,  and  her  calm  composure  had  been  unbroken 
irom  the  moment  of  their  return  home,  though  it  was  not  yet  two 
months  since  her  husband's  death.  In  these  days  she  rfead  enor- 
mously, which  again  was  a  new  trait  —  especially  novels.  She  read 
each  through  rapidly,  laid  it  down  without  a  word  or  comment,  and 


CHAP.   VI  MARCELLA  541 

took  up  another.  Once  or  twice,  but  very  rarely,  Marcella  surprised 
her  in  absent  meditation,  her  hand  covering  the  page.  From  the 
hard,  satiric  brightness  of  her  look  on  these  occasions  it  seemed 
probable  that  she  was  speculating  on  the  discrepancies  between 
fiction  and  real  life,  and  on  the  falsity  of  most  literary  sentiment. 
To-night  jMarcella  sat  almost  silent  —  she  was  making  a  frock 
for  a  village  child  she  had  carried  off  from  its  mother,  who  was 
very  ill  —  and  Mrs.  Boyce  read.  But  as  the  clock  approached  ten, 
the  time  when  they  generally  went  upstairs,  Marcella  made  a  few 
uncertain  movements,  and  finally  got  up,  took  a  stool,  and  sat  down 
beside  the  sofa. 

An  hour  later  INIarcella  entered  her  own  room.  As  she  closed 
the  door  behind  her  she  gave  an  involuntary  sob,  put  down  her  light, 
and  hurrying  up  to  the  bed,  fell  on  her  knees  beside  it  and  wept 
long.  Yet  her  mother  had  not  been  unkind  to  her.  Far  from  it. 
IVIi's.  Boyce  had  praised  her  —  in  few  words,  but  with  evident  sin- 
cerity—  for  the  courage  that  could,  if  necessary,  put  convention 
aside ;  had  spoken  of  her  own  relief ;  had  said  pleasant  things  of 
Lord  Maxwell ;  had  bantered  Marcella  a  little  on  her  social  schemes, 
had  wished  her  the  independence  to  stick  to  them.  Finally,  as  they 
got  up  to  go  to  bed,  she  kissed  Marcella  twice  instead  of  once,  and 
said : 

"  Well,  my  dear,  I  shall  not  be  in  your  way  to-morrow  morning ; 
I  jji'omise  you  that." 

The  speaker's  satisfaction  was  plain ;  yet  nothing  could  have 
been  less  maternal.  The  girl's  heart,  when  she  found  herself  alone, 
was  very  soi'e,  and  the  depression  of  a  past  which  had  been  so 
much  of  a  failure,  so  lacking  in  any  satisfied  emotion  and  the 
sweet  preludes  of  family  affection,  darkened  for  a  while  even 
the  present  and  the  future. 

After  a  time  she  got  up,  and  leaving  her  room,  went  to  sit  in  a 
passage  outside  it.  It  was  the  piece  of  wide  upper  corridor  leading 
to  the  winding  stairs  she  had  descended  on  the  night  of  the  ball. 
It  was  one  of  the  loneliest  and  oddest  places  in  the  house,  for  it 
communicated  only  with  her  room  and  the  little  staircase,  which  was 
hardly  ever  used.  It  was,  indeed,  a  small  room  in  itself,  and  was 
furnished  with  a  few  huge  old  chairs  with  moth-eaten  frames  and 
tattered  seats.  A  flowery  paper  of  last-century  date  sprawled  over 
the  walls,  the  carpet  had  many  holes  in  it,  and  the  shallow,  traceried 
windows,  set  almost  flush  in  the  outer  surface  of  the  wall,  were  cur- 
tainless  now,  as  they  had  been  two  years  before. 

She  drew  one  of  the  old  chairs  to  a  window,  and  softly  opened 
it.  There  was  a  young  moon,  and  many  stars,  seen  uncertainly 
through  the  rush  of  April  cloud.     Every  now  and  then  a  splash  of 


542  MARCELLA  book  iv 

rain  moved  the  creepers  and  swept  across  the  lawn,  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  a  spell  of  growing  and  breathing  silence.  The  scent  of 
hyacinths  and  tulips  mounted  through  the  wet  air.  She  could  see 
a  long  ghostly  line  of  primroses,  from  which  rose  the  grey  base  of 
the  Tudor  front,  chequered  with  a  dim  light  and  shade.  Beyond 
the  garden,  with  its  vague  forms  of  fountain  and  sun-dial,  the 
cedars  stood  watching  ;  the  little  church  slept  to  her  left. 

So,  face  to  face  with  Nature,  the  old  house,  and  the  night,  she 
took  passionate  counsel  with  herself.  After  to-night  surely,  she 
would  be  no  more  lonely  !  She  was  going  for  ever  from  her  own 
keeping  to  that  of  another.  For  she  never,  from  the  moment  she 
wrote  her  letter,  had  the  smallest  doubt  as  to  what  his  answer  to 
her  would  be ;  never  the  smallest  dread  that  he  would,  even  in  the 
lightest  passing  impression,  connect  what  she  was  going  to  do  with 
any  thought  of  blame  or  wonder.  Her  pride  and  fear  were  gone 
out  of  her ;  only,  she  dared  not  think  of  how  he  would  look  and 
speak  when  the  moment  came,  because  it  made  her  sick  and  faint 
with  feeling. 

How  strange  to  imagine  what,  no  doubt,  would  be  said  and 
thought  about  her  return  to  him  by  the  outside  world !  His  great 
place  in  society,  his  wealth,  would  be  the  obvious  solution  of  it  for 
many  —  too  obvious  even  to  be  debated.  Looking  back  upon  her 
thoughts  of  this  night  in  after  years,  she  could  not  remember  that 
the  practical  certainty  of  such  an  interpretation  had  even  given 
her  a  moment's  pain.  It  was  too  remote  from  all  her  now  familiar 
ways  of  thinking  —  and  his.  In  her  early  Mellor  days  the  enor- 
mous importance  that  her  feverish  youth  attached  to  wealth  and 
birth  might  have  been  seen  in  her  very  attacks  upon  them.  Now 
all  her  standards  were  spiritualised.  Slie  had  cOme  to  know  what 
happiness  and  affection  are  possible  in  three  rooms,  or  two,  on 
twenty-eight  shillings  a  week;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  her  knowl- 
edge of  Aldous  —  a  man  of  stoical  and  simple  habit,  thrust,  with  a 
student's  tastes,'  into  the  position  of  a  great  landowner  —  had  shown 
her,  in  the  case  at  least  of  one  member  of  the  rich  class,  how  wealth 
may  be  a  true  moral  burden  and  test,  the  source  of  half  the  difficul- 
ties and  pains  —  of  half  the  nobleness  also  —  of  a  man's  life.  Not 
in  mere  wealth  and  poverty,  she  thought,  but  in  things  of  quite 
another  order  —  things  of  social  sympathy  and  relation  —  alterable 
at  every  turn,  even  under  existing  conditions,  by  the  human  will, 
lie  the  real  barriers  that  divide  us  man  from  man. 

Had  they  ever  really  formed  a  part  of  historical  time,  those  eight 
months  of  their  engagement?  Looking  back  upon  them,  she  saw 
herself  moving  about  in  them  like  a  creature  witliout  eyes,  worked, 
blindfold,  by  a  crude  inner  mechanism  that  took  no  account  really 
of  impressions  from  without.     Yet  that  passionate  sympathy  with 


CUAP.  VI  MARCELLA  643 

the  poor  —  that  hatred  of  oppression  ?  Eveu  these  seemed  to  her 
to-night  the  blind,  spasmodic  efforts  of  a  mind  that  all  through 
sofii  nothing  —  mistook  its  own  violences  and  self-wills  for  eternal 
right,  and  was  but  traitor  to  what  should  have  been  its  own  first 
loyalties,  in  seeking  to  save  and  reform. 

Was  true  love  now  to  deliver  her  from  that  sympathy,  to  deaden 
in  her  that  hatred?  Her  whole  soul  cried  out  in  denial.  By  daily 
life  in  natural  relations  with  the  poor,  by  a  fruitful  contact  with 
fact,  by  the  clash  of  opinion  in  London,  by  the  influence  of  a  noble 
friendship,  by  the  education  of  awakening  passion  —  what  had 
once  been  mere  tawdry  and  violent  hearsay  had  passed  into  a  true 
devotion,  a  true  thirst  for  social  good.  She  had  ceased  to  take  a 
system  cut  and  dried  from  the  Veuturists,  or  any  one  else;  she  had 
ceased  to  think  of  whole  classes  of  civilised  society  with  abhorrence 
and  contempt ;  and  there  had  dawned  in  her  that  temper  which  is 
in  truth  implied  in  all  the  more  majestic  conceptions  of  the  State 
—  the  temper  that  regards  the  main  institutions  of  every  great 
civilisation,  whether  it  be  property,  or  law,  or  religious  custom,  as 
necessarily,  in  some  degree,  divine  and  sacred.  For  man  has  not 
been  their  sole  artificer  !  Throughout  there  has  been  working 
with  him  "  the  spark  that  fires  our  clay." 

Yes  !  —  but  modification,  progress,  change,  there  must  be,  for  us 
as  for  our  fathers  !  AVould  marriage  fetter  her  ?  It  was  not  the 
least  probable  that  he  and  she,  with  their  differing  temperaments, 
would  think  alike  in  the  future,  any  more  than  in  the  past.  She 
would  always  be  for  experiments,  for  risks,  which  his  critical 
temper,  his  larger  brain,  would  of  themselves  be  slow  to  enter  upon. 
Yet  she  knew  well  enough  that  in  her  hands  they  would  become 
bearable  and  even  welcome  to  him.  And  for  himself,  she  thought 
with  a  craving,  remorseful  tenderness  of  that  pessimist  temper  of  his 
towards  his  own  work  and  function  that  she  knew  so  well.  In  old 
days  it  had  merely  seemed  to  her  inadequate,  if  not  hypocritical. 
She  would  have  liked  to  drive  the  dart  deeper,  to  make  him  still 
unhappier  !  Now,  would  not  a  wife's  chief  function  be  to  reconcile 
him  with  himself  and'life,  to  cheer  him  forward  on  the  lines  of  his 
own  nature,  to  believe,  understand,  help? 

Yet  always  in  the  full  liberty  to  make  her  own  sacrifices,  to  real- 
ise her  own  dreamlands !  She  thought  with  mingled  smiles  and 
tears  of  her  plans  for  this  bit  of  earth  that  fate  had  brought  under 
her  hand;  she  pledged  herself  to  every  man,  woman,  and  child  on 
it  so  to  live  her  life  that  each  one  of  theirs  should  be  the  richer  for 
it ;  she  set  out,  so  far  as  in  her  lay,  to  "  choose  equality."  And 
beyond  Mellor,  in  the  great  changing  world'  of  social  speculation 
and  endeavour,  she  prayed  always  for  the  open  mind,  the  listening 
heart. 


544  MARCELLA  book  iv 

"There  is  one  conclusion,  one  cry,  I  always  come  back  to  at 
last,"  she  remembered  hearing  Hallin  say  to  a  young  Conservative 
with  whom  he  had  been  having  a  long  economic  and  social  argu- 
ment. "  Ne.ver  resign  yourself!  —  tliat  seems  to  be  the  main  note  of 
it.  Say,  if  you  will  —  believe,  if  you  will,  that  human  nature,  being 
what  it  is,  and  what,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  it  always  must  be,  the 
motives  which  work  the  present  social  and  industrial  system  can 
never  be  largely  superseded ;  that  property  and  saving  —  luck,  too ! 

—  struggle,  success,  and  failure,  must  go  on.  That  is  one's  intel- 
lectual conclusion  ;  and  one  has  a  right  to  it  —  you  and  I  are  at  one 
in  it.  But  then  —  on  the  heels  of  it  comes  the  moral  imperative  ! 
'  Hold  what  you  please  about  systems  and  movements,  and  fight  for 
what  you  hold;  only,  as  an  individual  —  never  say — never  think  I 

—  that  it  is  in  the  order  of  things,  in  the  purpose  of  God,  that  one 
of  these  little  ones  —  this  Board-School  child,  this  man  honestly  out 
of  work,  this  woman  "  sweated  "  out  of  her  life  —  should  perish  ! ' 
A  contradiction,  or  a  commonplace,  you  say  ?  Well  and  good.  The 
only  truths  that  burn  themselves  into  the  conscience,  that  work 
themselves  out  through  the  slow  and  manifold  processes  of  the  per- 
sonal will  into  a  pattern  of  social  improvement,  are  the  contradic- 
tions and  the  commonplaces  !  " 

So  here,  in  the  dark,  alone  with  the  haunting,  uplifting  pres- 
ences of  "admiration,  hope,  and  love,"  Marcella  vowed,  within 
the  limits  of  her  personal  scope  and  jjower,  never  to  give  up  the 
struggle  for  a  nobler  human  fellowship,  the  lifelong  toil  to  under- 
stand, the  passionate  effort  to  bring  honour  and  independence  and 
joy  to  those  who  liad  them  not.  But  not  alone ;  only,  not  alone  ! 
She  had  learnt  something  of  the  dark  aspects,  the  crushing  com- 
plexity of  the  world.  She  turned  from  them  to-night,  at  last, 
with  a  natural  human  terror,  to  hide  herself  in  her  own  passion, 
to  make  of  love  her  guide  and  shelter.  Her  whole  rich  being 
was  wrought  to  an  intoxication  of  self-giving.  Oh  !  let  the  night 
go  faster!  faster!  and  bring  his  step  upon  the  road,  her  cry  of 
repentance  to  his  ear. 

"  I  trust  I  am  not  late.  Your  clocks,  I  think,  are  ahead  of  ours. 
You  said  eleven  ?  " 

Aldous  advanced  into  the  room  with  hand  outstretched.  He 
had  been  ushered  into  the  drawing-room,  somewhat  to  his 
surprise. 

Marcella  came  forward.  She  was  in  black  as  before,  and  pale, 
but  there  was  a  knot  of  pink  anemones  fastened  at  her  throat, 
which,  in  the  play  they  made  with  her  face  and  hair,  gave  him  a 
start  of  pleasure. 

"  I  wanted,"  she  said,  "to  ask  you  again  about  those  shares  — 


CHAP.  VI  MARCELLA  545 

how  to  manage  the  sale  of  them.     Could  you  —  could  you  give  me 
the  name  of  some  one  in  the  City  you  trust?  " 

He  was  conscious  of  some  astonishment. 

"  Certainly,"  he  said.  "  If  you  would  rather  not  entrust  it  to 
IMr.  French,  I  can  give  you  the  name  of  the  firm  my  grandfather 
and  I  have  always  employed ;  or  I  could  manage  it  for  you  if  you 
would  allow  me.     You  have  quite  decided?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  said  mechanically,  —  "  quite.  And  —  and  I  think  I 
could  do  it  myself.  Would  you  mind  writing  the  address  for  me, 
and  will  you  read  what  I  have  written  there  ?  " 

She  pointed  to  the  little  writing-table  and  the  writing  materials 
upon  it,  then  turned  away  to  the  window.  He  looked  at  her  an 
instant  with  uneasy  amazement. 

He  walked  up  to  the  table,  put  down  his  hat  and  gloves  beside 
it,  and  stooped  to  read  what  was  written. 

^^  It  was  in  this  room  you  told  me  I  had  done  you  a  great  wrong. 
But  ivrongdoers  may  be  pardoned  sometimes,  if  they  ask  it.  Let  me 
know  by  a  sign,  a  look,  if  I  may  ask  it.  If  not  it  would  be  kind  to  go 
away  loithout  a  word." 

She  heard  a  cry.  But  she  did  not  look  up.  She  only  knew  that 
he  had  crossed  the  room,  that  his  arms  were  round  her,  her  head 
upon  his  breast. 

"  Marcella !  —  wife  !  "  was  all  he  said,  and  that  in  a  voice  so  low, 
so  choked,  that  she  could  hardly  hear  it. 

He  held  her  so  for  a  minute  or  more,  she  weeping,  his  own  eyes  dim 
with  tears,  her  cheek  laid  against  the  stormy  beating  of  his  heart. 

At  last  he  raised  her  face,  so  that  he  could  see  it. 

"  So  this  —  this  was  what  you  had  in  your  mind  towards  me, 
while  I  have  been  despairing  —  fighting  with  myself,  walking  in 
darkness.  Oh,  my  darling !  explain  it.  How  can  it  be  ?  Am  I 
real?  Is  this  face  —  these  lips  real?  "  —  he  kissed  both,  trembling. 
"Oh!  when  a  man  is  raised  thus  —  in  a  moment  —  from  torture 
and  hunger  to  full  joy,  there  are  no  words  —  " 

His  head  sank  on  hers,  and  there  was  silence  again,  while  he 
wrestled  with  himself. 

At  last  she  looked  up,  smiling. 

"  You  are  to  please  come  over  here,"  she  said,  and  leading  him 
by  the  hand,  slie  took  him  to  the  other  side  of  the  room.  "  That 
is  the  chair  you  sat  in  that  morning.     Sit  down  !  " 

He  sat  down,  wondering,  and  before  he  could  guess  what  she 
was  going  to  do  she  had  sunk  on  her  knees  beside  him. 

"I  am  going  to  tell  you,"  she  said,  "a  hundred  things  I  never 
told  you  before.     You  are  to  hear  me  confess-;  you  are  to  give  me 
penance  ;  you  are  to  say  the  hardest  things  possible  to  me.     If  you 
don't  I  shall  distrust  you." 
2n 


546  MARCELLA  book  iv 

She  smiled  at  him  again  through  her  tears.  "  Marcella,"  lie 
cried  in  distress,  trying  to  lift  her,  to  rise  himself,  'you  can't 
imagine  that  I  should  let  you  kneel  to  me .' " 

"  You  must,"  she  said  steadily ;  "  well,  if  it  will  make  you  hap- 
pier, I  will  take  a  stool  and  sit  by  you.  But  you  are  there  above 
me  —  I  am  at  your  feet  —  it  is  the  same  chair,  and  you  shall  not 
move"  —  she  stooped  in  a  hasty  passion,  as  though  atoning"  for 
her  "shall,"  and  kissed  his  hand  —  "till  I  have  said  it  all  —  every 
word !  " 

So  she  began  it  —  her  long  confession,  from  the  earliest  days. 
He  winced  often  —  she  never  wavered.  She  carried  through  the 
sharpest  analysis  of  her  whole  mind  with  regard  to  him ;  of  her 
relations  to  him  and  Wharton  in  the  old  days ;  of  the  disloyalty 
and  lightness  with  which  she  had  treated  the  bond,  that  yet  she 
had  never,  till  quite  the  end,  thought  seriously  of  breaking ;  of 
her  selfish  indifference  to,  even  contempt  for,  his  life,  his  interests, 
his  ideals ;  of  her  calm  forecasts  of  a  married  state  in  which  she 
was  always  to  take  the  lead  and  always  to  be  in  the  right  —  then 
of  the  real  misery  and  struggle  of  the  Hurd  trial. 

"  That  was  my  first  true  experience,"  she  said ;  "  it  made  me  wild 
and  hard,  but  it  burnt,  it  purified.  I  began  to  live.  Then  came 
the  day  when  —  when  we  parted  —  the  time  in  hospital  —  the 
nursing  —  the  evening  on  the  terrace.  I  had  been  thinking  of 
you — because  remorse  made  me  think  of  you  —  solitude  —  Mr. 
Hallin  —  everything.  I  wanted  you  to  be  kind  to  me,  to  behave 
as  though  you  had  forgotten  everything,  because  it  would  have 
made  me  comfortable  and  happy ;  or  I  thought  it  would.  And 
then,  that  night  you  wouldn't  be  kind,  you  wouldn't  forget  — 
instead,  you  made  me  pay  my  penalty." 

She  stared  at  him  an  instant,  her  dark  brows  drawn  together, 
struggling  to  keep  her  tears  back,  yet  lightening  from  moment  to 
moment  into  a  divine  look  of  happiness.  He  tried  to  take  posses- 
sion of  her,  to  stop  her,  to  silence  all  this  self-condemnation  on  his 
breast.     But  she  WQuld  not  have  it;  she  held  him  away  from  her. 

"  That  night,  though  I  walked  up  and  down  the  terrace  with 
Mr.  Wharton  afterwards,  and  tried  to  fancy  myself  in  love  with 
him  —  that  night,  for  the  first  time,  1  began  to  love  you  !  It  was 
mean  and  miserable,  wasn't  it,  not  to  be  able  to  appreciate  the 
gift,  only  to  feel  when  it  was  taken  away?  It  was  like  being- 
good  when  one  is  punished,  because  one  must  —  " 

She  laid  down  her  head  against  his  chair  with  a  long  sigh.  He 
could  bear  it  no  longer.  He  lifted  her  in  his  arms,  talking  to  her 
passionately  of  the  feelings  which  had  been  the  counterpart  to  hers, 
the  longings,  jealovisies,  renunciations  —  above  all,  the  agony  of  that 
moment  at  the  Mastertons'  party. 


CHAP.   VI  MARCELLA  547 

"  Halliu  was  the  ciily  person  who  understood,"  he  said;  "he 
knew  all  the  time  that  1  sliould  love  you  to  my  grave.  I  could 
talk  to  him." 

She  gave  a  little  sob  of  joy,  and  pushing  herself  away  from  him 
an  instant,  she  laid  a  hand  on  his  shoulder.    ' 

"  I  told  him,"  she  said  —  "1  told  him,  that  night  he  was  dying." 

He  looked  at  her  with  an  emotion  too  deep  even  for  caresses. 

"He  never  spoke  —  coherently  —  after  you  left  him.  At  the  end 
he  motioned  to  me,  but  there  were  no  words.  If  I  could  possibly 
love  you  more,  it  would  be  because  you  gave  him  that  joy." 

He  held  her  hand,  and  there  was  silence.  Halliu  stood  beside 
them,  living  and  present  again  in  the  life  of  tlieii"  hearts. 

Then,  little  by  little,  delight  and  youth  and  love  stole  again  upon 
their  senses. 

"  Do  you  suppose,"  he  exclaimed,  "  that  I  yet  understand  in  the 
least  how  it  is  that  I  am  here,  in  this  chair,  with  you  beside  me  ? 
You  have  told  me  much  ancient  history  !  —  but  all  that  truly  con- 
cerns me  this  morning  lies  in  the  dark.  The  last  time  I  saw  you, 
you  were  standing  at  the  garden-door,  with  a  look  which  made  me 
say  to  myself  that  I  was  the  same  blunderer  I  had  always  been, 
and  had  far  best  keep  away.  Bridge  me  the  gap,  please,  between 
that  hell  and  this  heaven  !  " 

She  held  her  head  high,  and  changed  her  look  of  softness  for  a 
frown. 

"  You  had  spoken  of  '  marriage .' '  "  she  said.  "  Marriage  in  the 
abstract,  with  a  big  M.  You  did  it  in  the  tone  of  my  guardian 
giving  me  away.     Could  I  be  expected  to  stand  that?  " 

He  laughed.     The  joy  in  the  sound  almost  hurt  her. 

"  So  one's  few  virtues  smite  one,"  he  said  as  he  captured  her  hand 
again.  "Will  you  acknowledge  that  I  played  my  part  well?  I 
thought  to  m3\self,  in  the  worst  of  tempers,  as  I  drove  away,  that 
I  could  hardlj'  have  been  more  official.  But  all  this  is  evasion. 
What  I  desire  to  know,  categorically,  is,  what  made  you  write  that 
letter  to  me  last  night,  after  —  after  the  day  before  ?  " 

She  sat  with  her  chin  on  her  hand,  a  smile  dancing. 

"  Whom   did   you  walk    with   yesterday   afternoon  ? "  she   said 
slowly. 
,  He  looked  bewildered.     . 

"  There  !  "  she  cried,  with  a  sudden  wild  gesture ;  "  when  I  have 
told  you  it  will  undo  it  all.  Oh !  if  Frank  had  never  said  a  word  to 
me;  if  I  had,  had  no  excuse,  no  assurance,  nothing  to  go  upon,  had 
just  called  to  you  in  the  dark,  as  it  were,  tiiere  would  be  some  gen- 
erosity, some  atonement  in  that !  Now  you  will  think  I  waited  to 
be  meanly  sure,  instead  of  —  " 

She  dropped  her  dark  head  upon  his  hand  again  with  an  aban- 


548  ,  MARCELLA  book  iv 

doiiment  which  unnerved  liim,  which  he  liad  ahnost  to  brace  himself 
against. 

"So  it  was  Frank,"  he  said  —  '■'■Frank!  Two  houi's  ago,  from 
my  window,  I  saw  him  and  Betty  down  by  the  river  in  the  park. 
They  were  supposed  to  be  fishing.  As  far  as  I  could  see  they  were 
sitting  or  walking  hand  in  hand,  in  the  face  of  day  and  the  keep- 
ers. I  prepared  wise  things  to  say  to  them.  None  of  them  will 
be  said  now,  or  listened  to.     As  Frank's  mentor  I  am  undone." 

He  held  her,  looking  at  her  intently. 

"  Shall  I  tell  you,"  he  asked,  in  a  lower  voice  —  "  shall  I  show 
you  something  —  something  that  I  had  on  my  heart  as  I  was  walk- 
ing here?  " 

He  slipped  his  hand  into  the  breast-pocket  of  his  coat,  and  drew 
out  a  little  plain  black  leather  case.  When  he  opened  it  she  saw 
that  it  contained  a  pen-and-ink  sketch  of  herself  that  had  been 
done  one  evening  by  a  young  artist  staying  at  the  Court,  and — a 
bunch  of  traveller's  joy. 

She  gazed  at  it  witli  a  mixture  of  happiness  and  pain.  It  re- 
minded her  of  cold  and  selfish  thoughts,  and  set  them  in  relief 
against  his  constancy.  But  she  had  given  away  all  rights  —  even 
the  right  to  hate  herself.  Piteously,  childishly,  with  seeking  eyes, 
she  held  out  her  hand  to  him,  as  though  mutely  asking  him  for  the 
answer  to  her  outpouring  —  the  last  word  of  it  all.  He  caught 
her  whisper. 

"  Forgive  ? "  he  said  to  her,  scorning  her  for  the  first  and  only 
time  in  their  history.  "  Does  a  man  forgive  the  hand  that  sets  him 
fi'ee,  the  voice  that  recreates  him?  Choose  some  better  word  — 
my  wife ! " 


MARCELLA. 

By  MRS.  HUMPHRY  WARD. 
Author  of  "  The  History  of  David  Grieve,"  "'  Robert  Elsmere,"  etc. 

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Mk.  F.  Marion  Crawford  says: 

"  The  task  undertaken  in  producing  '  Marcella'  was  worthy,  in  magnitude  and  in 
interest,  of  the  hand  .  .  .  that  gave  us  '  Robert  Elsmere'  and  traced  the'  History  of 
David  Grieve."  .  .  .  The  whole  impression  left  after  reading  'Marcella'  from  be- 
ginning to  end  is  remarkable  for  the  number  of  highly  finished  pictures  fixed  in  the 
mind  of  the  reader  —  pictures  of  which  he  cannot  but  feel  sure  that  they  are  at  once 
true  to  life  and  typical  of  life.  And  those  two  conditions  are  rarely  satisfied  by  any 
pictures  whatsoever,  whether  drawn  or  written.  .  .  ■  There  are  scenes  of  cottage 
life  in  the  book  which  have  probably  never  been  outdone  in  clean  accuracy  of  obser- 
vation or  in  brilliancy  of  literary  finish." 


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in 


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